The Heidenheim Heideköpfe are German baseball champions for the seventh time. On Sunday they won the decisive fourth game of the final series in the 1st Baseball Bundesliga 3-1 against the Untouchables Paderborn and won the best-of-5 series 3-1. An outstanding performance from Jared Mortensen laid the foundation for the success of the game.
Photo: Lance Rössner
The previous week, Heidenheim won game one 17:8 before the Untouchables won the second game 7:2. On Saturday, the Heideköpfe won game three 7:4 before securing the championship title a day later. For Paderborn it was the second final defeat in the second year in a row. In the 2022 season they had to admit defeat to the Bonn Capitals.
But the season isn’t over for the U’s yet. On October 7th and 8th they will host the Guggenberg Legionnaires Regensburg in the final series of the German Baseball Cup. The winner will qualify for next year’s European Cup alongside German baseball champions Heidenheim. Regensburg beat the Bonn Capitals 2-0 in the best-of-3 semi-finals of the German Baseball Cup with 7:5 and 7:2.
Mortensen allowed just five hits, one run and two walks in nine innings in Game Four of the final series, with 13 strikeouts. Offensively, Shawn Larry was able to score two runs. Daniel Vavrusa hit home two runs. On the other hand, Mark Harrison, who won the pitcher’s duel against Mortensen the previous week, had to accept the narrow loss.
In the Softball Bundesliga, the best-of-5 final series between the Wesseling Vermins and Bonn Capitals started on Saturday. In the first two games, the rivals from the Rhine shared victories in a repeat of last year’s final. In game one, Bonn narrowly held the upper hand 7-4 in extra innings. In game two, the Vermins won clearly with 8:1. Games three to possibly five will take place next weekend in Bonn.
In the German Softball Cup, the Freising Grizzlies and the Hamburg Knights prevailed in the second round. Freising won games one and three against the Guggenberg Legionnaires Regensburg with 7:0 and 6:2, while Regensburg won the second game with 11:1. Hamburg narrowly won 4:3 and 11:4 at the Neunkirchen Nightmares. Freising will now play against the Mannheim Tornados next weekend, while Hamburg will play against the Stuttgart Reds. The winners then qualify together with Bonn and Wesseling for the Final Four in Neunkirchen on September 30th and October 1st. Mannheim and Stuttgart were eliminated in the DM semi-finals the previous week.
2023-09-17 13:28:20
#Heidenheim #Heideköpfe #German #baseball #champions #7th #time
