CNMI sluggers bow to New Caledonia

The CNMI Baseball Team missed scoring back-to-back wins in the 2011 Pacific Games after losing to New Caledonia, 2-3, yesterday at the Baseball Mont-Dore in New Caledonia.

The Commonwealth sluggers, who downed Palau in their debut game, 1-0, led in their second match, 2-0, after six and a half innings, but lost the upper hand when New Caledonia recovered in the last inning, scoring three runs, two were unearned.

Tyrone Omar made the first run for the CNMI in the top of the third inning off Boris Zavarsky’s error on third base. New Caledonia failed to score in the first six innings with Elton Santos on the mound for the CNMI, allowing only three hits and striking out seven.

The CNMI made it a 2-0 count at the top of the seventh inning when Jesus Iguel reached home plate on a New Caledonia throwing error.

Then in the last inning, the Commonwealth sluggers moved two outs away from winning the match when New Caledonia leadoff batter Kevin Velayoudon flied out to center. Santos walked second batter Herve Saint-Pol, who later scored off CNMI errors.

After Saint Pol gave New Caledonia its first run and two more runners went to bases, the CNMI switched pitchers, bringing in Franco Flores for Santos. With Flores on the mound, the CNMI got the second out when New Caledonia shortstop Jacque Boucheron grounded out to first.

Remi Courazze batted next for New Caledonia after the second out and with the bases loaded, he hit a single to right field and brought home David Durand for the equalizer, 2-2. Then with New Caledonia runners on second and third, the host scored another unearned run off a CNMI error for the win.

New Caledonia now has a 1-1 record, the same mark the Commonwealth owns. Guam leads the six-team field with a perfect 2-0 mark, while Palau and Fiji join the host and the CNMI in a tie for second place. American Samoa is at the bottom of the team standings with its 0-2 card. Palau recovered from its loss to the CNMI with a 12-0 shutout of American Samoa.

Baseball action will continue today with Fiji taking on Palau in the first match and New Caledonia facing American Samoa. The CNMI will rest today and will return to the field tomorrow against the undefeated Guam.

Meanwhile, the golf competition in the 2011 Pacific Games started yesterday at the Golf de Tina in Noumea.

Only the scores of the first seven players were listed on the 2011 Pacific Games’ website with the CNMI’s Adam Hardwicke carding an 89 in the first of the four-round competition. New Caledonia’s Hugo Denis had a 73 for the temporary lead, followed by Guam’s Mando Iwanaga (74), Norfolk Island’s Darren Anderson (80), Cook Island’s Royle Brogan (82), Olaf Allen (83), and Niue’s James Douglas (93).

Forty-nine golfers are entered in the individual competition and these include the CNMI’s Jeff Taylor, Tony Satur, and Jess Wabol.

Other events are ongoing and after five days of competition, New Caledonia is now on top of the medal board, bumping off Tahiti. As of 7pm last night, New Caledonia had a 15-19-3 gold-silver-bronze medal tally for the No. 1 spot, followed by Tahiti (10-4-7), Fiji (7-4-4), Papua New Guinea (5-1-4), Tonga (2-1-3), Samoa (0-4-4), Guam (0-2-1), Wallis & Futuna (0-0-2), the Solomon Islands (0-0-1), and Cook Islands (0-0-1).