Austria edges Ukraine to capture spot in U-23 Baseball Euros 2025

The final was a close encounter at the Obuda ballpark in Budapest. Austria struck first and took a quick 1-0 lead in the first on a solo home run by Tobias Werner. They extended the advantage with a RBI single by Moritz Riedmann in the second and another solo home run by Julian Faulhaber in the fifth.

Ukraine answered in the bottom of the fifth with a two-run single by Volodymyr Rukher to reduce the deficit to a run. But while they have had a couple base runners afterwards they failed to tie the game. Eoghan Mc Garry issued two runs (0 ER) on four hits and a walk in six innings for the win. Mykyta Liabakh got charged with the loss.

Austria and Ukraine had finished the preliminary round robin with 3-1 records each with Ukraine winning the first-round matchup 10-5 to gain home field advantage in the final. Host Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia rounded up the final standings in third, fourth and fifth place.

Budapest hosted one of two U-23 Baseball European Championship B-Pool tournaments this week with Zurich, Switzerland being the other. In Zurich Israel prevailed to capture a spot in next year’s U-23 Baseball European Championship, which will be held in Trebic, Czechia.

All games in Budapest were streamed live through www.baseballeurope.tv. Complete results and statistics are available at www.wbsceurope.org.  

Photo by by Eugen Werner