KHS dominates inaugural boys HS softball

The Inaugural SBL-PSS Interscholastic Boys High School Slow Pitch Softball League 2023-2024 is underway with Kagman High School Ayuyu sluggers dominating Dandan Softball Field last Saturday.

KHS stacked lineup of mostly CNMI U17 National Baseball players thought they would have it easy in the first game of the season, but Marianas High School Dolphins put up a fight.

Noah Aguon scored the go-ahead, walk-off winning run in the bottom of the last inning for the Ayuyus for a close 12-11 win.

The Ayuyus struck first with three runs in the first inning scored by the first three in the lineup—Jon Diaz, Justin Camacho, and Jeremiah Suel III. KHS held onto that lead until the third inning when MHS’ Austin Pelisamen scored for a 1-3 game.

KHS then added another run to make it 4-1 heading into the fourth, when MHS’ Franky Hocog scored to make it 4-2. The Ayuyus still had more firepower in them as they scored two in the bottom of the fourth, but MHS came back in the fifth and scored three from runs by Pelisamen, Silvestre Ilo, and Tony Palacios for a 6-5 KHS lead.

KHS added one more run to make it 7-5, but then MHS scored six more runs from four consecutive RBI walks and two RBI singles, to overtake the lead, 11-7.

At the bottom of the last inning with two outs, KHS’ Joell Borja, Chris Pangelinan, Andrew Igitol, and Terrel Rabago scored four runs to tie it up, 11-11, with the winning run on the plate in the form of Aguon—who delivered.

In other results, KHS JV trounced Mount Carmel School, 11-4; KHS varsity pummeled MHS JV, 31-0; KHS JV won over Saipan Southern High School varsity, 10-4; and MHS varsity beat MCS, 8-1.

Saipan Baseball League board member and league coordinator Kyle Hocog said in an interview after the games that SBL took on the league so as to give back to the youth. “This is about the bat and ball game. When we have these kids fielding over here, we hope it can transition into the baseball diamond. We’re rolling out high school boys, then we got middle school boys and girls, and elementary coed. I think it’s just going to be a great opportunity just to be out here and hopefully revive the game and it starts with these age groups.”

As for the first day of games, Hocog said, “The first day was great. The first game was a walk-off and MCS came out—they’re a private school so it was nice to have them. We had three games which were pretty good and had good weather… It was a great turnout.”

He added, “I think you know, with it being the very first day, we have a lot more work to do as we work out the kinks. I like to think of this as a leap pad of what we hope for the next season which is the underarm fast pitch softball. So, to get things going, we wanted to do the slow-pitch first.”