THE HAGUE, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Italy prolonged their European baseball title by beating the Netherlands in the final in Rotterdam on Sunday.

The reigning European champions defeated the Netherlands 8-3, despite an early lead by the hosts. Italy made eight points in the third and fourth innings and the Dutch were not able to recover from that blow.

Italy and the Netherlands dominate European baseball for years. The Italians grabbed their tenth title in history, while the Netherlands hold the record of twenty European gold medals.

Since the first European championships in 1954, only Spain (1955) and Belgium (1967) also became European champions, besides the Netherlands and Italy.