Kagman Lancherus, D9ers score wins

After weeks of waiting to lace up the cleats and wield the aluminum swat sticks, the men of the Saipan Softball Association finally got the 2005 Island-Wide Fast-Pitch Softball League underway Tuesday night at Tan Ge Field as the Kagman Lancherus and the D-9ers scored victories under the lights at the Oleai Sports Complex.

It didn’t take long for the D-9ers to show that they mean business in the underhanded dart-throwing league as they jumped out to take a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the third inning before exploding for a seven-run, seven-hit inning in the bottom of the sixth that sealed the deal.

The D-9ers capitalized on Proas miscues to generate offense as three of their four walked batters eventually crossed home plate with follow-up hits from their teammates.

There was little that the previously pummeling powers of Proas could do in their next at bat to keep the game alive as powerful pitcher Tony Satur looked on from the dugout with an injury.

Slugger Mel Sakisat got his season off to a sweet start by going 2-for-4 with a pair of singles, a stolen base, and two plate crossings while teammate Greg F. Camacho led the charge for the D-9ers with a perfect 3-for-3 performance in which he smacked three base hits and drove in four runs.

Jerome Delos Santos rolled up his sleeves and did his share of the hitting with a single and a two-run homerun for the D-9ers that helped to put the Proas away for good. One of the reasons that the P-Men failed to mount a comeback was D-9ers pitcher Jess Peterson.

The hurler allowed just two runs off of seven hits and plunked one through seven innings of work.

The Kagman Lancherus didn’t have the benefit of a single-inning eruption, so they did things the old fashioned way by steadily putting runs on the board to knock off the Islanders, 9-4.

The Lancherus scored their nine runs off of 13 hits—half of which came from the trio of Shane Cruz, Ryan Tudela, and Frank Arurang. Cruz went 2-for-4 on the night with a pair of singles and a run batted in while Tudela went 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and two scores, but Arurang stole the show with three singles and a 3-for-4 outing at the plate.

After taking a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first, the Lancherus added a run in the second, a pair in the third, another tally in the fourth, and two more runs in the fifth to take a 9-4 lead before closing out the Islanders with solid pitching from reliever John Camacho.

Gus Aguon started the night for the Lancherus and gave up two runs off of three hits before Camacho took the rubber to close out the final four innings by allowing two runs off of five hits and walking a pair.