Guam seals title duel against Australia
CLARK – Guam arranged an explosive duel with unbeaten Australia for the 2016 Asia-Pacific Senior League Baseball crown as it drubbed host Philippines, 8-1, and claimed the No. 2 position at the end of the eliminations at the Clark International Sports Complex at The Villages here yesterday.
The Guamanians bombarded Phil representative ILLAM with seven runs in the last two innings to romp off with a 3-1 record and follow unbeaten Australia (4-0) into the gold medal match set today.
Winner of the Australia-Guam showdown will earn the right to represent the AsPac in the SLB World Series on July 31-Aug. 6 in Bangor, Maine.
With its second setback in four games, ILLAM settled for a spot in the bronze medal match against dethroned champ Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which wound up with 2-2 after a 23-1 annihilation of Indonesia (0-4).
“We’ll try our best to win this game and end the tournament on a good note,” said ILLAM coach Egay de los Reyes, whose wards dispute third place honors with the CNMI batters at 8 a.m. today.
After four scoreless innings, Guam broke the ice through Javier Lujan’s error-aided run in the bottom of the fifth. ILLAM quickly equalized in the bottom half as Javi Cojuangco drove Nathan Carpio home with a base-hit to left field.
The Guamanians, though, came through with the bigger plays in the windup to shut the door on the Filipinos in the event sponsored by Mister Donut and the Philippine Sports Commission.
Cole Cabrera put Guam ahead with a run-scoring sacrifice bunt and Calvin Aguon followed it up with an RBI double in the sixth. The visitors poured it on in the seventh with a five-run binge built around RBI hits by Kobe Quiambao, Reed Seman and Aguon.
Japan, meanwhile, stormed to its fourth straight triumph in the Intermediate League elims after outdueling defending champion Korea in a no-bearing match, 6-2. The Japanese and the Koreans (3-1) mix it up again today with the AsPac jewel and a trip to the Intermediate World Series on July 31-Aug. 7 in Livermore, California on the line. Hong Kong bested Philippine bet Sarangani, 6-3, in another ranking match ahead of their bronze medal tiff today. Mirroring what happened to their ILLAM counterparts over in Field 1, the Sarangani clouters fought their opponents on even terms for most part before losing steam.