U18 National Baseball Team off to Palau

The U18 NMI National Baseball Team poses for a photo with Gov. Arnold I. Palacios during a courtesy call Tuesday afternoon at the Office of the Governor before their flight to Palau tomorrow for the 2023 Palau-CNMI Goodwill Baseball Event.(LEIGH GASES)

The U18 National Baseball Team is off to Palau this Friday for the 2023 Palau-CNMI Goodwill Baseball Event.

The games are scheduled from June 19 to 23. The CNMI boys—in their first international tourney—are facing off against four different Palau baseball teams including the Palau National Baseball Team that recently participated in the 2022 Pacific Mini Games.

The U18 National Baseball Team consists of Albert Adriano, Joell Borja, Justin Camacho, Kazu Dela Cruz, Joel Deleon Guerrero, Derence Diaz, Jon Diaz, Achilles Evangelista, Angelo Igitol, Charles McDonald III, Benjamin Palacios, Jylon Sablan, John Peter Sablan, and Jeremiah Suel III.

The team manager is Joey Dela Cruz and the coaches are Mike Cruz and Jeremiah Suel, and Vicente Palacios is the statistician.

On Tuesday, the team went up to the Office of the Governor for a courtesy call. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios welcomed them and said he is proud of them. “I hope you guys enjoy it. Play the game, but also enjoy… we want to thank you, your parents, your coach, and the league for your continued representation of our Commonwealth. We’re very proud of you guys. We’ve seen some of you guys develop since Little League, so it’ll be a different world out there.”

Dela Cruz to the governor said, “We wanted to make sure that we come here and vouch to be ambassadors in this tournament—and we will wear the name CNMI with pride and class.”

The team was formed last August and is currently playing in the adult major league 2023 Tan Holdings-Saipan Baseball League. As of press time, the Junior Nationals as they are called in the league, are in second place out of 10 other teams, with a 5-2 win-loss record.

Dela Cruz, in an interview with the media after said, “We’ve been preparing since August of 2022. These boys have been conditioning and preparing for a really long time. Super Typhoon, Yutu and COVID had really robbed them of their critical development from the sport and they persevered, and as a matter of fact, the results are showing here at the current major league season.”

“The team continues to trust the process and stick with the program and hopefully that one day, this is our next national team right here,” he said of the team.

As for the decision to send young ball players out to compete with older players in Palau, Dela Cruz said it’s about the CNMI youth’s development in baseball. “It’s about investing in our youth and having continuity with the sport. As you know, there’s no Little League. The only baseball program right now is the current adult league. So, I want to give thanks to Jay [Santos] and the Saipan Baseball League board for believing and investing in youth development and sending the Junior National team out to represent the islands out there.”

The funding for the whole trip was through the Saipan Baseball League, with Dela Cruz saying that’s another investment in the youth. “There will be reciprocity. After this, we’ll continue to give them the opportunity to get experience and [be] exposed to this type of competition—not just on the local level, but regionally.”

As for what’s next for the team after Palau, Dela Cruz said that they will finish up the 2023 Tan Holdings-Saipan Baseball League season. Then, they will have a tournament versus the University of Guam Tritons team, which is temporarily slated for July 25-30 on Saipan.