James Adderley and Sports Monday with the play by play
Good evening, I’m James Adderley and welcome to this delivery of Sports Monday.
The 6 best women’s softball teams in the Jewel congregated inside Roger’s Stadium over the weekend in a bid to emerge as champion in the 22nd National Softball Championships that lent itself to a double elimination format. By Sunday evening, only the 2 Belize City Teams remained standing to renew a bitter rivalry for the 2012 title. Telemedia led by the indefatigable Raymond Lashley took the field in the 1st inning with Mary Flowers on mound against Mirage Lady Rebels who came in determined take out their arch-rivals today. Flowers gets her team out of the 1st inning unscathed by getting Ashanti Anderson to hit the ball straight to short stop Elaine Humes for the forced out at 2nd base.
In the bottom of the inning, Lanisha Jones, of Lady Rebels, faces Norecia Frazer with 2 on and the 3rd baseman crushes this pitch for a 3-run homerun and the B.T.L. team celebrates her 2nd of the tournament. Jones is touched again in the 2nd by center fielder, Lydia Cacho, who doesn’t quite get the ball over the fence, but it’s good enough to bring Elaine Humes home from 2nd base. Cacho is then brought home by this double from Norecia Frazier who has her way with Lanisha Jones today. Meanwhile, Mary Flowers helps herself when she hits this pitch past the 2nd baseman and Frazier makes it a 6-zip lead. Lady Rebels finally find some offense in the top of the 3rd when Ashanti Anderson gets this ball through the infield as Sharette Vernon scores. Sharette Vernon should have been struck out here but Erlene Belisle can’t come up with the ball. Jones reaches first and Lisa Jones scores to make it a 6-3 deficit going into the top of the 3rd.
Lanisha Jones comes up with a nice pitch against Kyle McFadzean so we’ll have to charge catcher, Sharette Vernon with the error as another B.T.L. run scores. Lydia Cacho bats next with 2 on base and she rips through the middle for another run. At the end of 3, it’s a 9-3 lead for Telemedia. The 10th run for B.T.L. comes from the bat of right-fielder, Barbara Cadle. Anderson should have caught this ball and then compounds the error with a bad throw to 3rd that allows Cadle to score. In fact, it wasn’t a contest down the stretch as Mary Flowers hung tough and did not concede another run to record the 10-3 victory as Raymond Lashley’s team repeat as National Champ in 2012.
Meanwhile, Greta Davis of Roaring Creek Grace Kennedy had the best batting average of the tournament with a .556 showing. Erlene Belisle of Telemedia had the most stolen bases. Norecia Frazier of Telemedia had the most homeruns with 2, the most batted in with 6 and emerged with MVP honors. Mary Flowers won the most games with 4 and Deandra Guy of Roaring Creek had the most strike outs with 14.
In football news, the Premier Football League of Belize opened its season over the weekend so we travelled to the Capital City, Belmopan on Saturday night as the Belmopan Bandits hosted FC Belize. The host team should have taken the lead some 15 minutes in when Jeremy James finds himself in a 1 on 1 against goalkeeper, Glenford Chimilio, and can you believe he misses from pointblank range?
It’s another scoring chance for the Bandits when Gilbert Swazo catches up with this center from off the right wing; however, the ball sails over the crossbar. Maybe it’s because he’s facing this old team, but the new Belmopan striker, Jeremy James just isn’t on top his game today as again he misfires from pointblank range. So we go to 2nd half and we can all agree that Jeremy James is not up to scratch when he simply can’t do anything with this nice feed from off the left side.
Folks, when you don’t capitalize on your opportunity, it comes back to haunt you. We’re late in 2nd half action when Francisco Briceno picks out Leon Cadle off this set piece and the header gives FC Belize the 1-zip lead. Belmopan had more ball possession time took more shots and should have won this ballgame, but they squandered the opportunity to get off on the goof foot. FC Belize takes it in a 1-zip affair. The only other result we know from over the weekend comes from the MCC Grounds where the Freedom Fighters cane all the way from Punta Gorda to blank RG City Boys 1-zip.
Turning to the cycling scene, Kulture Tours presented a 59 mile open race yesterday that ran from Leslie’s Imports, traveled through the Boom Circuit, hit the Northern Highway to mile 40 and swung back to finish at Garbutt’s Farm featuring some 40 riders. On the Boom Road, Brandon Cattouse tries to mount a solo effort, but gets tracked down before he could solidify the move. At the turn around point at Mile 40, 2 riders are being chased by the main bunch. However, around mile 35, Jairo Campos makes his escape and he would never be caught. And here he is on the way to the finish line in uncontested fashion and we say congratulations to Campos as he blows a kiss in victory. In the sprint for 2nd place, Gregg Lovell prevails as Chris McNish takes 3rd and Philip Leslie 4th while Byron Pope rounds out the top 5.
Jah over all, I’m James Adderley.
