![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/baseball-worldcup2009.jpg\" "\\"Baseball")
Great Britain have just qualified for the second round of the Baseball World Cup in dramatic fashion.\u00c2\u00a0 GB’s 4-1 victory over Croatia earlier today ensured that Stephan Rapaglia’s men would finish third in Pool D behind Nicaragua (3-0) and Japan (1-2).\u00c2\u00a0 While the top two teams in each of the five pools qualified automatically for the second round, only four of the five third-placed teams progressed with them.<\/p>\n
For most of the evening, it looked as though Britain would be the team to miss out.\u00c2\u00a0 Tomorrow would be filled with gloom at an early exit. That was before a five-run eighth inning by Venezuela against Germany turned everything on its head.\u00c2\u00a0 Now we’re playing Cuba at 19.00 BST in Haarlem, Netherlands.<\/p>\n
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All five third-placed teams finished with the same 1-2 record, so the tie-breaker rules for the World Cup came into effect.\u00c2\u00a0 The first of the tie-breakers is the number of runs conceded and Great Britain’s heavy defeats to Japan (9-4) and Nicaragua (10-0) looked like being their undoing.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the picture once Great Britain’s game was over:<\/p>\n
Pool<\/strong><\/td>\n| 3rd-placed finisher<\/strong><\/td>\n | Runs conceded<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | A<\/td>\n | Chinese Taipei<\/td>\n | 16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | B<\/td>\n | Spain<\/td>\n | 10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | C<\/td>\n | South Korea<\/td>\n | 19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | D<\/td>\n | Great Britain<\/td>\n | 20<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n | Basically, we were on our way out.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Pool C appeared to be the real dream killer. Netherlands Antilles were seemingly the main team who offered us hope at the start of the day as they had conceded twenty-three runs in their first two games, including a 15-0 hammering against Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 Had they lost to South Korea today, even in a 1-0 pitching duel, they would have finished third in Pool C having conceded more runs than us.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n As it was, they recovered from an early 2-0 deficit to win 9-5 and finished second in their pool.\u00c2\u00a0 That pushed South Korea into third with nineteen runs conceded, one less than Great Britain.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Our only remaining hope was that the third-placed team in Pool E would finish having conceded twenty-one runs or more.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t seem likely. Venezuela (eleven runs conceded in first two games) and Germany (ten) were the two teams involved in the second-third placed battle and both were a fair way from the twenty-one runs conceded mark.<\/p>\n Heading into the top of the eighth, Great Britain’s World Cup adventure appeared to be over.\u00c2\u00a0 Venezuela looked well set for the victory, but in that event we needed Germany to concede eleven runs and they were only trailing 7-1.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n But then Venezuela started tacking on runs, one at a time. At 8-1 with the bases loaded, the German pitcher Rodney Gessman walked in the ninth run.\u00c2\u00a0 Then he hit the next batter to make it 10-1 with the bases still loaded. All Great Britain needed was for Venezuela to score one more run.<\/p>\n When the German third baseman made an error to allow the eleventh and twelfth runs to score, even the most compassionate Brit couldn’t stop themselves from jumping up and down with excitement.\u00c2\u00a0 Great Britain would be heading for the Netherlands.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if Germany had staged a miraculous comeback and won the game 13-12, Venezuela would have finished third with a worse run conceded total than us.<\/p>\n Here are the final third-placed standings:<\/p>\n
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