Upsets abound in SSA Slowpitch

A season’s worth of domination was washed down the drain on Friday night, as the eighth-seeded La Chai (6-7) knocked off the pennant winning first seed Master Construction Flyers (12-1) 30-15, to kick off the opening round of playoff action in the Island Wide Slow Pitch Softball League at the Oleai Sport Complex.

La Chai wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard, as they tallied five runs in the top of the first, a pair in the top of the second, and seven in the top of the third, and held a commanding 14-4 before the start of the fourth inning.

The Flyers began to rally in the bottom of the third when they scored their first four runs of the game, and continued to score three in the bottom of the fourth and five in the bottom of the fifth to close the gap to three runs at 15-12.

Just when the pennant winners were within reach, La Chai erupted for 15 runs in the top of the sixth inning to put the game away. Joey Dela Cruz was the slug master, having hit three homeruns, scoring four times, and batting in six runners for La Chai.

Teammate John Reyes also cracked a homer, and went 3-for-4 at the plate with a pair of runs batted in, while Mark Toves went 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles and singles that led to two runs batted in.

The second upset of the night occurred when the fifth-seeded X-Clusive (9-4) left the fourth-seeded Brotherhood (9-4) calling for mercy, as the underdogs disbanded the siblings by a score of 21-11.

At the very least, this game was expected to be the closest of the night, but after scoring three runs in the top of the first inning, X-Clusive never relinquished the lead.

They added five runs in the top of the fifth, and carried the momentum into the top of the third inning to score eight runs. X-Man Ben Guerrero raised plenty of eyebrows when he hit a moon shot to center field that just barely failed to clear the fence.

The Brotherhood began to make a comeback in the bottom of the second inning when they scored four runs. They closed the gap to 16-7 in the bottom of the fourth, and were looking for more when Ben Camacho hit a long ball over left field fence that was robbed by a leaping Byron Kaipat.

Aside from aiding his team with his leaping abilities, Kaipat went 4-for-5 at the plate with a homerun, three singles, three scores, and a run batted in. Teammate J.J. Cabrera was a perfect 4-for-4 at the plate with a pair of doubles and singles to go along with three scores and four ribbies.

John Acosta also was flawless at the plate, as the X-Clusive slugger hit four singles, scored three times, and brought home one base runner.

The third seeded Natibu (11-2) was the only favored team to pull through for a victory, and they did so with a 27-13 thumping of the sixth-seeded Island Mix (8-5). After three innings of play, Natibu held a 11-7 advantage, and added a few insurance runs when they scored 16 runs off of 17 hits in the bottom of the fourth to give them the 27-7 advantage.

Four Natibu player had multi-homeruns, as Oscar Sablan, Jerry Ayuyu, Nick Castro, and Ken Kalen each hit two homers.

All of the playoff action of the Saipan Softball Association returns tonight at the Oleai Sports Complex, when La Chai takes on Natibu X-Clusive at 6:30pm, and the second seeded Eliminators (11-2) take on the seventh seeded Bud Light Chura (8-5) at 7:30pm.