Falcons fly high in Big League

The Tanapag Falcons preyed on all of the teams in the 2008 Saipan Little League Baseball Association’s Big League division after winning both the pennant and playoff championships of the age group.

Team representatives accepted the twin trophies last Saturday during SLLBA’s awards ceremony held at the pavilion behind the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

The Falcons won the pennant with Hustlers and Jets taking second and third. The team from Tanapag duplicated the feat in the playoffs, beating the Hustlers in the finale with Jets again taking third. Incidentally, the Jets also took home the sportsmanship award.

In the individual awards, Jesus Iguel was named MVP of the regular season, while Giovannie Ayuyu was most valuable player of the playoffs.

Iguel topped three categories in the 2008 season of the Big League—batting (.452), runs (18), and homeruns (two). Ben Leon Guerrero tied Iguel in runs and Shane Yamada also had two homeruns last season.

Ryan Ada came away with the doubles championship trophy after hitting five two-baggers in 2008, while Yamada was named Mr. RBI with 14 runs batted in credited to him last season.

Nicolas San Nicolas, meanwhile, was the Big League’s ERA champ after the perennial all-star registered a low 01.40. Elton Santos was the season’s strikeout champ with 52 Ks registered.

SLLBA president Juan I. Tenorio congratulated all the teams that made up the 2008 season of the program during Saturday’s awards ceremony.

“First of all, I would like to congratulate the managers and the coaches for a great job done. The result of their work is showing when we find that some of the players are tied for homerun, for RBIs, for doubles, triples. So, those are indicators on how our leagues have progressed and developed.”

He, however, encouraged everyone involved in the island’s Little League program not to rest on their laurels and work to make it better in the coming years.

“My overall assessment of the 2008 season is above average, we still have some room for improvement and I hope that we would continue to work to achieve that end and to continue to improve. Hopefully, next year more teams will participate in the 2008 season. That would give us more players to select for the all-stars,” he said.