Mont-Saint-Guibert Phoenix @ Mortsel Stars @ Borgerhout, a Photo Impression

Today, yours truly attended the first game of a double header in the Belgian Division One, between Phoenix Mont-Saint Guibert and Mortsel Stars. In a game that Mortsel could have won in seven innings, Mont-Saint-Guibert fought itself back into the game, but ended at the wrong side of the score eventually.

After the Mortsel Stars were forced to leave their facility as the Flemish government, that owns the ground the facility was built on, favored a commercial party to build a children’s plaground at the location, the Stars moved into a new facility, provided by the municipality of Mortsel. But since there are some issues with the natural turf, the chairman of the club doesn’t want to take any risks and forbids the teams to play or to practice at the facility. As a result, the flagship team of the Stars is playing its home games at the facility of the Borgerhout Squirrels.

Today, the Mortsel Stars took, what appeared to be a comfortable lead twice. After two innings, the Stars were leading 7-0 and after the third, 12-4. After Phoenix MSG fought its way back to 13-10 after a lot of (bloop) singles in the top of the fifth, the Stars scored six more runs to take another comfortable lead, as the team scored six runs in the bottom of the fifth. But in the top of the sixth, Stefan Schoonheydt issued eight walks and allowed a three-RBI double to Tashi-Phuntsok Clesse, which resulted in a total of eight runs. Eventually, Mortsel won with a narrow margin of two runs (21-19). The left side of the infield, was Phoenix’ Achilles heel today, as that side committed several errors.

Game two was another close affair, but in that game not as many runs were scored as in game one. Mont-Saint-Guibert won game two 8-6.

Here is a photo impression of game one:

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