Article submitted by Maja Cizmic Regula (Softball club Princ - Croatia)

KNOCKOUT TOURNAMENT 2009 – Zagreb

At the end of last year we decided it is time to organize FIRST men international softball tournament in Croatia since we had several women tournaments during last 15 years. Date was picked since there was a holiday on Thursday and also a 5th World Softball Day.

Faith took over and we had 5 teams at our tournament: 2 teams from Croatia (Princ and Medvednica), Slovenia (Ljubljana Kings), Switzerland (Die Hards) and Italy (Roma).

K-OUT (Knockout) tournament was organized by two Zagreb teams from June 12th till 14th on the softball fields in Jarun.
Team Princ and Roma opened a tournament with very interesting and tight game. Most of the games ended with very tight results. During Friday and Saturday in round - robin games we got first ranking for playoff (1. Princ, 2. Die Hards, 3. Medvednica, 4. Slovenia, 5. Roma). Sunday was a thriller day because almost all the games were decided in last innings. The most interesting game of the day was a semi final game between Princ and Medvednica with 2 extra innings played. Team Princ won and went to finals and eventually took the 1st place.

Highlight of the tournament was the game between Croatian national boys team who played their first game against Rome (5th place) on Sunday before semi-finals. Boys who are competing in European Championship in Czech Republic in 2 weeks showed good level of hitting and base running, so they beat Italian team.

The age group showed that softball is for all people interested to play since we had boys 15 years old playing against older guys age of 60.All the teams were very satisfied with level of the games, organizing and fields, so they promised to come back next year.

With hope that we see softball again in the Olympics best regards from Croatian clubs: Princ Jarun, Princ Zagreb, Medvednica and Dubrava."