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Denied chance at World Series

IT CAME down to one last game in the 2012 Asia Pacific Big League Regional Tournament. Last night at the Paseo Stadium, Team Guam took on their neighboring island CNMI and faced a must-win situation in order to advance to the World Series. Backed by a loud and boisterous crowd, both teams laid everything out on the field with no regrets. Despite hard efforts, Guam still fell to CNMI 9-5 in seven innings.

After quickly retiring the Guam side in order in the opening inning, CNMI went right to work in the bottom half of the first inning. With lead off batter Leroy Regis on base, CNMI's Patrick Tenorio ripped an RBI-single to bring in Regis for the early 1-0 lead.

Guam came out in the top of the second and responded to equalize the game at 1-1. Guam's Donny Diego got the inning started and took base after being hit by CNMI starter Brian Camacho. Two batters later, George Flores smacked a shot that sailed over CNMI's left fielder to drive in Diego. CNMI quickly matched Guam's strongest inning with a three-run inning of its own in the bottom half of the second. CNMI scored on an RBI-single by McGarette Duenas, a steal home by Regis, and an error.

Capitalize

Guam was able to capitalize on several errors by CNMI in their half of the fifth to score three runs to tie the game at 4-4. Justin Elm, Polycard Luther and Nicolas Cruz scored one run apiece in the inning. CNMI went up for good in the bottom half scoring two runs on a two-run single by Tenorio.

Despite putting two runners on base, Guam wasn't able to take advantage of the situation and went down leaving two runners stranded. CNMI added three more runs in the bottom of the inning to increase their lead to 9-4. Regis singled, plating Ricardo Dela Cruz to start the inning. That was followed up by Duenas' double, scoring Regis.

After pushing across one run in the top of the seventh, Guam faced just a 9-5 deficit and looked poised to mount a late comeback.

However, a strong CNMI defense held ground and was able to retire the side without further harm to earn the victory.

Brian Camacho got the win for CNMI despite allowing five runs over 6 1/3 innings. Camacho struck out four, walked one and gave up five hits. Leroy Regis, McGarette Duenas and Patrick Tenorio helped lead CNMI. They combined for seven hits and six RBIs. In the losing effort, Guam's George Flores went 1-for-2 with a double and an RBI offensively. Defensively, Guam starting pitcher Sean Cruz tallied four strikeouts.

With the win by CNMI and loss by Guam, all three teams in the tourney finished with identical 2-2 records. However, Philippines will advance to the Big League World Series in Easley, S.C. as they clinched the spot via a tiebreaker. According to tournament officials, the tiebreaker was decided on least amount of runs allowed.