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Draci sweeps finals

Wins 13th-straight title; Tegola survives

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 24th, 2007 issue

A day after his team swept through Czech baseball’s championship series, Draci Brno manager Arnošt Nesňal was still tired.
“This playoff was the toughest we’ve ever had,” he said, trying to ward off the lingering effects of a post-game celebration. Some 500 hardcore Draci fans had gathered to whoop it up with the 13-time Extraliga champions following their three-game sweep of MZLU Brno.
“All the games were difficult,” he said.
Draci clinched the title, 3-0, on a near-perfect performance by young right-hander Martin Schneider (5–0, 1.10 ERA during the season). He allowed only two MZLU batters to reach base, giving up just a pinch-hit single in the ninth inning.
But throughout the best-of-five series MZLU pitchers stifled Draci’s powerful offense. Behind pitcher Leoš Kubát, the underdogs took a 2-0 lead into the ninth inning of game one Oct. 14. But with the game almost in hand, fortune turned its back on Brno’s No. 2 team. A walk, misplayed bunt and fly ball lost in the sun loaded the bases; Doug Dreher, coming off the bench, then drove home the game-winning runs.
Six days later the series resumed, and Kubát began losing steam in the sixth. An error by third baseman Milan Vystrčil opened the door to another 3-2 Draci victory, setting up Schneider’s dominant performance the next day, Oct. 21.
Meanwhile, both Blansko and Prague’s Tegola Titans held on to their Extraliga berths with three-game sweeps of their second-division rivals.
Despite sloppy play in the opener, the Titans managed a convincing 9-2 win over Sokol Hluboká. It should have been worse: three base running blunders erased several potential scores and several field errors allowed the minor leaguers to rally.
“That’s not the way to do it,” said Tegola pitcher Bohumil Bílek afterward. “Basically, we’re not satisfied.”
The boys from Prague 12 took out their frustrations on hapless Hluboká the next day, winning 21-1. “We wanted to show them they have no chance,” said Tegola shortstop Pavel Míka. “We did.”
Tegola closed out the series with a 14-4 win Oct. 20. Jiří Drha hit .500 for the series (7 for 14) and František Kučera clubbed Hluboká pitching at a .545 clip.
Blansko struggled against a Liberec squad reinforced by former Extraliga hurler Lubomír Janda. Still, they managed a 3-1, 5-3, 4-2 sweep.
With their wins, Blansko and Tegola can look forward to another season in the top division, while for Draci Brno, 2008 means a shot at 14 championships in a row.
“I don’t know what will happen next year,” Nesňal said, wondering if other clubs are catching his squad. “It wasn’t so easy this time — I think we’re on the borderline.”

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


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