Little League baseball in the Czech Republic continues to grow

RALPH WILSON/Sun-Gazette Correspondent
Players for the Europe-Africa team leave the field at Volunteer Stadium for the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Little League World Series in South Williamsport on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024.

Little League baseball has seen a lot of growth in Czech Republic in recent years, growth that’s pitted the country at the top of the Europe-Africa region in the sport and has now culminated in back-to-back Little League World Series appearances.

At the forefront of that progress has been South Czech Republic LL out of Brno, which has represented the nation in the last four Europe-Africa qualifiers. While that would normally indicate a lack of competition, Czech Republic manager Pavel Jozek would disagree.

“(The growth of) Little League has been similar around the entire Czech Republic,” said Jozek. “I’d say the baseball quality is improving each year.”

With improved competition comes adversity. And in advancing past adversity, comes added success.

And after dominating through much of last year’s regional – apart from a scare in the title against Netherlands, this year’s team somehow managed to build on last year’s success. Through the European regional, it outscored its opponents by a combined score of 43-2, displaying more balance after surrendering six runs in last year’s championship.

“Right now, I have a great team in all ways – a complete team,” said Jozek. “They’re good at hitting and throwing, defensively too.”

Though a whole new coaching staff made its series debut on Thursday, four familiar faces kicked off their second stints at the event.

Pitcher Ilia Kolomoiets, third baseman Dominik Kliner, shortstop Stêpán Svec and first baseman Filip Stanka return to the series after being a part of last year’s squad – bringing experience and another year of practice to Volunteer Stadium.

That experience showed on Thursday.

Kolomoiets, who didn’t pitch at last year’s event, broke his country’s strikeout record at the series with ten, displaying poise on the grand stage and playing a big role in the team holding a lead for most its game against Cuba. Though he faltered a bit to end the fourth, he finished surrendering just two runs, two hits and two walks through 4.2 innings pitched and a pitch count of 82.

Kliner and Svec were consistent at their defensive positions as well, routinely turning grounders that approached their territory into force outs at first. And Stanka was there to receive those missiles, displaying a similar lack of jitters.

“The biggest difference between them (and the rest of the roster) is that they are not scared and not surprised like the new guys are,” said Jozek. “We can see big improvements in Ilia’s performance from last year’s.”

“Ilia was really young last year, and last year’s coach bet on other guys with pitching. We can see big improvements from Ilia, and we are really grateful for it,” he added on Kolomoiets.

Though the team ultimately fell to Cuba, 4-1, they gave the fans more to be excited about compared to last year’s opener, holding a lead for the majority of the game. In its pursuit of the country’s first series win since 2013, Jozek believes it simply comes down to maintaining the level of play it displayed through much of the game.

“We have to stay concentrated the whole game because we were concentrated for four innings and it was just wasted,” said Jozek. “We (plan to) go through the whole game and try to work (on) mistakes. Then, rest for next game.”

Whatever happens next game, he’s happy his players have gotten an opportunity to play at an event like no other.

“It really means a lot for the kids because of the experience they gain,” expressed Josek. “They just love it here.”