NALB 2015 World Championship Series - Game 7

K. Fields
2016-10-11T19:00:40-04:00
Baseball

For the third straight year, the NALB World Championship was decided by a seventh game. In fact, this was the fourth time in the last five years that the World Championship Series went the distance. An enthusiastic packed crowd was on hand in Brooklyn to cheer for starter Pofírio Portio and the Knights. There was a lot of pressure on Corals starter Mario Torralbo, pitching in front of a hostile crowd.

The first inning started disastrously for the Corals. Torralbo retired the first batter and then left the game with an arm injury. Key West’s bullpen is a strength of the team but there were many innings left to pitch. Berto Sarzoza replaced Torralbo and he finished the first three innings. He made a couple of costly mistakes in the second inning when he walked Alexis Schmidt and then gave up a home run to Ángel Santago. The Corals batters helped him out the next inning, however. Cipriano Delgudo led off with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly. Later in the inning, Yuan Li homered to give Key West a 3-2 lead. Miguel Catarino was the next reliever for the Corals. He was superb, just as he was in game six. This time he pitched 3⅔ shutout innings. With the score still 3-2 heading into the eighth, the Knights chances were fading. Brooklyn sent Ken Hannah to the mound to keep it close. Hannah retired the first two batters and then gave up back to back home runs to Adelmo Porcayo and Alonso Martucci. Once again, Almandeto Trillio came in to close out the game for the Corals in the ninth. The Knights needed three runs to tie, which was a very tall order against Trillio. With two outs, Hsiao-lou Yeh hit a solo homer but it was too little, too late. The Key West Corals won the game and the series. They are the NALB 2015 World Champions!

Final score: Key West 5, Brooklyn 3

             1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   R  H  E
Key West     0 0 3 0 0 0 0 2 0   5  8  0
Brooklyn     0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1   3  4  0

W: B. Sarzosa
L: P. Portio
S: A. Trillio