D-9ers are fast pitch champions

The D-9ers rebounded from a disappointing loss in the second game of their best-of-three series with the Saipancell/NMC Proa to unseat the regular season pennant winners, 15-9, Friday to become the champions of the 2005 Island Wide Fast Pitch Softball League at the Oleai Sports Complex.

The D-9ers scored 15 runs off of 20 hits through seven innings, and chased pitching legend Tony Satur from the rubber after five innings of work in which he allowed 10 runs off of 14 hits.

The D-9ers slugger Jerome Delos Santos brought the offense on Friday night, as the second baseman went 3-for-4 in the final game of the championship with a pair of doubles, a single, a sacrifice bunt and a run batted in.

Teammate Mel Sakisat was perfect in the deciding Game 3, as the hard-hitting shortstop went 4-for-4 at the plate with a pair of double, two base knocks, and a sac fly to center that scored the first of his two runs batted in.

The infielders provided plenty of hits for the D-9ers, as third baseman Dante Sablan went 3-for-5 with a trio of singles, a run scored, and a run batted in, while first baseman Tony Camacho recorded a double, a single, and four runs batted in for the newly crowned champions of the Saipan Softball Association.

Game 2 of the series belonged to Satur, as the CNMI’s underhanded version of Randy Johnson allowed five runs off of nine hits and struck out six batters along the way in seven innings of work.

Satur also got help from the Proa bats in the second game, as the pennant winning offense racked up 11 runs off of 11 hits to tie the series at a game apiece—forcing a deciding third game.

By the time he removed himself from the do-or-die rubber game before the start of the sixth inning, Satur left the mound having pitched in 12 consecutive innings in which he surrendered 15 runs off of 24 hits and struck out seven.

With the series tied at a game apiece, the D-9ers got the ball rolling early, as they scored two runs in the top of the first inning off of three consecutive doubles, when Camacho doubled in Sakisat and left fielder Roy Celis doubled in Camacho.

Proa answered back with a pair of their own in the bottom of the inning when Gus Palacios singled in Ivan Igitol and Jester Garcia.

Centerfielder Ken Kalen kept up the fire in the bottom of the second when he doubled in Tony Pangelinan before reaching home via leftfielder Jason Gaye’s two-run homerun that gave the Proa a 5-2 lead after two complete.

The D-9ers returned in the third inning to chip away at the lead when Sakisat scored for the second time of the night, and Celis came home courtesy of a Sablan single to make the score 5-4.

The Proa were blanked in the bottom of the inning, and the D-9ers tacked on another pair of runs to take the lead. This time it was right fielder Paul Camacho and centerfielder Mark Toves crossing the plate to make the score 6-5 in favor of the regular season runner-ups.

Another Proa goose egg in the bottom of the fourth gave the D-9ers an opportunity to widen their lead in the top of the fifth, and that’s exactly what they did, as they scored four runs off of four hits to increase their advantage to a 10-5 score.

The Proa were only able to answer back with one run in the bottom of the inning when Garcia singled home Gaye. The score remained 10-6 when the D-9ers failed to score in the top of the sixth, and the Proa got new life when they closed the gap to 10-8 when Kalen hit a two-run shot that scored third baseman Tony Celis in the bottom of the inning.

Feeling the heat of the Proa rally, the D-9ers scored five runs off of five hits in the top of the seventh to give them the added insurance that they needed with the 15-8 advantage. Though Celis would single in catcher Manny Sablan in the bottom of the inning, it would not be enough, as the D-9ers won the game 15-9.