Saipan puts best foot forward for regionals

Saipan is putting its best foot forward in hosting the 2015 Asia Pacific Junior, Senior, and Big League Baseball Regional Tournament that will kick off tomorrow at the Francisco M. Palacios Baseball Field.

The steamroller operator takes a break after working on compacting the dirt of the Francisco M. Palacios Baseball Field yesterday in time for Friday’s opening of the Asia Pacific Middle East Regional Tournament.
(Jon Perez)

Close to 100 volunteers have been working since February, assisting in planning and preparing for the annual Little League event that offers World Series berths in three divisions.

Tournament director James Ada said that everything is in order as all committee members gave him an update in last Tuesday night’s meeting at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium conference room.

“We held a final meeting with the committee members and we finalized all the preparations since we started planning for this event early this year,” said Ada.

“The accommodations are set and the meals have been taken care off. The games facility is okay with DPW and gym staff working together to spruce up the Tan Ko baseball field,” he added.

A steamroller was also used yesterday afternoon to make the dirt compact and flat in time for the opening match between the hosts and their southern neighbor and rival Guam.

A total of 48 games will be played for 10 days, from June 26 to July 5, with the winners becoming the representatives of the region to the World Series—Junior League in Taylor, Michigan; Senior in Bangor, Maine; and Big League in Easley, South Carolina.

The Junior League teams of Guam and Australia arrived yesterday, while the flight of the Philippine team in the same division got delayed after some of its players’ visas were not released on time. Organizers, however, assured that the Philippine Junior League team is set to plane in Thursday afternoon, while its Senior League squad were scheduled to arrive at 1:25am this morning. The PH’s Big leaguers arrived on Saipan last night.

Defending Junior League champion Chinese-Taipei and its Senior League team were also slated to arrive at 1:45am today, while the Guam Seniors were set to come in at 3:35am. Hong Kong’s Junior League squad’s arrival time was at 1:45am today, while its Senior team were expected to plane in at 8:05am.

Guam’s Big leaguers will be the last team to arrive, early Friday morning and they will play against the CNMI at 3pm after the opening ceremony.