World Series: Manila softbelles fall short again
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Falling behind after an early enemy barrage, the Manila softbelles failed to recover, absorbing a 4-14 rout from the US Central squad Grand Rapids, Michigan, in six innings on Wednesday in the finals of the 2010 Big League Softball World Series in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Notorious for its slow starts, Manila gave up six runs in the first inning and eventually lost the title game to Grand Rapids for the second time in three years.
It was the first World Series championship game ended by the mercy rule.
The Filipinos’ pitching, so solid the past six games, yielded 13 hits and the defense that had been near-flawless coughed up four errors, turning the final into a one-sided affair.
Manila coach Ana Santiago was at a loss over the performance of her team, which looked every inch a winner after coming back from a 0-2 slate to post six straight victories and reach the finals.
“I really don’t know what happened in the first inning,” Santiago said in an interview with the Kalamazoo Gazette.
“We have a young team, it was our first game under the lights and maybe we were nervous. I’m just shocked … an easy grounder that is a basic play, then the bunt … I don’t understand what happened.”
Manila also lost to Grand Rapids in the final, 1-2, two years ago.
This final wasn’t even close.
In the first championship game that did not go the seven-inning distance, Grand Rapids leaned on home runs by Kelsey Bandstra and Liz Hamming off Julie Marie Muyco in the first inning, where the Americans clustered five hits.
Down 0-10, the Filipinos mounted a rally at the top of the fifth, scoring four runs after two outs to extend the game.
Nerissa Benjamin and Isabel Gomez scored on errors, before Michelle Macatangay’s single allowed Elvie Entrina and Marlyn Francisco to reach home.
But Hamming finished off the Filipinos with a two-run homer at the bottom of the sixth that set the final score.
Meanwhile, the Bacolod Major League squad missed its flight for Portland, Oregon, where it was supposed to compete in its division’s World Series because of a flap stemming from the wrong composition of accompanying officials.
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