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Major, Junior League All-Stars bounce back
Spencer Dickinson, left, scored in the CNMI’s 2-1 win over the Philippines yesterday in the 2016 Asia Pacific Regional Championships in Taiwan. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)
The CNMI Junior and Major All-Stars regained their bearings after winning their respective matches in Taiwan and Korea yesterday.
The Junior All-Stars eked out a 2-1 victory against the Philippines in the 2016 Asia Pacific Regional Championships in Pintung to recover from their 0-14 debut loss to the host country last Tuesday afternoon.
Spencer Dickinson and Dai Podziewski scored the two runs for the Commonwealth and the former was also the starting pitcher for the squad, working the mound until the fourth inning. Jode Reyes relieved Dickinson. No other details of the CNMI-Philippines game were available at press time.
Dickinson, Podziewski, and Reyes are joined on the team by Dennis Cabrera, Tyrese Camacho, Vicente Camacho Jr., Justin Celis, Aven Evangelista, Angel Iguel, Philip Kapileo, Pedro Maratita, Ignacio Mendiola, Joe Tudela, and Arby Yaguel. Manny Evangelista is the squad’s manager, while Mike Cruz and Vicente Camacho are the coach and assistant, respectively.
The group arrived in Taiwan early Tuesday morning and participated in the 5:30pm opening ceremony before challenging the home team in the 6:30pm match. With two matches down, the CNMI Junior League All-Stars have three games left with the first one against China today and the last two versus Hong Kong (Friday) and India (Saturday). The Top 2 teams in the six-squad field after the round-robin play will move into in the finals and fight for the rights to represent Asia Pacific in the World Series.
Meanwhile, the CNMI Major All-Stars snapped their three-game losing streak with a 19-4 spanking of Indian yesterday at the Jangchung Stadium in Seoul.
However, the lopsided win was not enough to move the Commonwealth bets to the Final Four, as they ended up at fourth place in Group A of the tournament behind Korea (5-0), the Philippines (4-1), and Dubai (2-3). Only the Top 2 finishers in each group will advance to the semis.
The CNMI also had a 2-3 record in the pool play, but dropped to fourth as it lost the tiebreak to Dubai, which defeated the former, 2-0, last Monday. Guam (2-3) and India (0-5) rounded out the Group A standings.
The Commonwealth’s crew’s other losses came from the Philippines (0-2) last Sunday and the host nation, 0-13, last Tuesday. The John Maratita-managed squad opened its campaign in ASPAC with a 7-3 triumph over Guam before absorbing three straight defeats.
The CNMI then vented its ire on India to end its skid. Maratita’s wards took the easy win after only three and a half innings, as an eight-run bottom of the first gave the team control of the match. The squad went 15-for-30 at bat and had 16 earned runs.
Reid Teregeyo was 4-for-4 at the plate and scored two runs and four RBIs. Kyle Kapileo and Nathan Aizon both hit 2-for-3 with the former adding three runs and two RBIs and the latter contributing two runs and an RBI.
