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Rock Steady clinches title
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Posted on Aug 30 2008
Finally, the title series in the 2008 Budweiser Saipan Major League baseball tournament wrapped up with Rock Steady winning the deciding Game 5, 5-3, yesterday at the Francisco “Tan Ko” Palacios Ballfield.
Rock Steady had enough juice to survive SML’s most stretched-out championship series, which took about three weeks to finish due to the rolling power outages.
Winning pitcher and eventual Finals MVP Nick San Nicolas and Rock Steady’s defense gave up only one run at the resumption of Game 5 to complete its domination of the 2008 season. Rock Steady was unbeaten in the regular season with a 14-0 record.
Game 5 resumed at the top of the third inning with the Rangers leading at 2-1. But the Joeten Motors-sponsored squad failed to pick up where it left off, scoring only one run in the remaining six-and-a-half innings.
Catcher Robert Bansil scored the Rangers’ lone run yesterday on a Ben Benwachi single.
Rock Steady made two runs apiece in the third and fourth inning to grab the driver’s seat and hung on to the lead in the last four-and-half innings with its outfielders hustling out for the ball.
Dane Lizama reached homeplate at the bottom of the third on a Jonathan Camacho sacrifice fly, while Roy Celis singled, driving Toi Celis home to put Rock Steady in the lead, 3-2.
Rock Steady added two more runs in the fourth with Tyrone Omar and Eric Lizama scoring on Rangers errors.
The Mel Tenorio-managed squad sealed the victory when Eric Lizama caught J.J. Laniyo’s fly ball to rightfield at the top of the eighth.
Dane Lizama went 4-for-4 at the plate, while Toi Celis and Omar hit 2-for-4 and 2-for-5, respectively.
Rock Steady had a batting average of .351 after going 13-for-37. The Rangers had more trips at the plate, but went only 11-for-40 for a batting average of .275.
San Nicolas pitched in no relief for Rock Steady, striking out five.
Rock Steady coach Joey Dela Cruz said their defense brought them to the championship. He added that Rangers’ errors allowed them to pull off a win.
Rock Steady scored three of its runs on the Rangers passing and fielding miscues.
