Dela Cruz and Sablan are the sultans of swing

The final standings and statistics are in and Joey Dela Cruz of the DCCA and Tanya Sablan of the Governor’s office are the 2004 Inter-Government Men’s and Women’s Softball Slow pitch League batting champions, respectively.

With an incredible batting average of .863, Dela Cruz hit the ball successfully in 44 out of 51 attempts. Dela Cruz also dela cranked out 23 homeruns, for 50 RBI’s while crossing the plate 41 times. His closest competition in the batting race, Tony Pangelinan of DOA, was .102 points behind. He definitely was a large part of DCCA’s 14-2 record this year.

Slugging away like it was going out of style, Sablan hit five triples en route to her .813 batting average, going 13-for-16. Sablan is clearly a standout player on a team that only managed to secure a three-way tie for third place in the standings.

The Men’s league featured several big hitters, with all members in the top 10 holding an average over .700. DCCA has three players besides Dela Cruz on the list, as John Reyes (.746), Mel Sakisat (.706), and Tony Camacho (.704) provided the fuel for their high-powered attack.

Pangelinan led the league with 18 doubles and managed to go 35-for-46, earning a .761 average. His squad finished 9-6 on the strength of his clutch hitting.

Paul Ogumoro and the Enforcers finished with a disappointing record of 8-7, but Ogumoro should find some solace in his solid 28-for-37 record at the plate and his .757 average that’s third in the league.

Team No Zone cruised this year to a 15-1 record off of the sticks of Manny Sablan (.754), Jerry Ayuyu (.750), and Fonz Tarope (.725). Sablan led his team with seven triples, 19 homeruns, 41 plate crossings, and a league topping 60 RBI’s.

The Governor’s Office also had one of the top performers at the plate with B.J. Attao. Attao was a one man wrecking crew for opposing pitchers, hitting 32-for-43 to average .744.

On the women’s side, Vanessa Mobel was hot on the tail of Sablan, hitting .762, five doubles, two triples, scoring 11 times and recording 13 RBI’s. It’s no wonder that her team had a league leading 5-1 record.

With a 4-2 record that was good enough for second place, Finance had a stable of four of the league’s top hitters in Liz Libria (.722), Bert Camacho (.714), Gina Wesley (.667), and Thelma Mizer (.667).

Libria had the highest total of plate crossings (13), Wesley had four homers and 11 RBI’s, while Mizer led the league with six homers, 16 RBI’s, five doubles, and scored 11 times.

DCCA got stuck in the logjam of three teams in third place, but Doris Rangamar (.750) and Jovie Omar (.733) were able to separate themselves from the pack. Omar was even able to stretch three hits into triples.

CUC was another member of the third place club that had a star hitter. Pauline Camacho slugged away for an average of .684 to help her team. There were only six occasions when she came up to the plate and didn’t get on base.

Finally, Janice Celis of DPW had plenty to be proud of this season. Although her squad finished last with a record of 1-5, she averaged .737 when swinging the bat.