Tanauan snares Li’l League title

Tanauan City won the game that mattered most as it blasted Muntinlupa City, 9-2, yesterday to crown itself Little League Baseball champion in the 2008 Little League Philippine Series at the Alabang County Club grounds and gain the right to represent the country in the Asia-Pacific Series.

The Tanauan batters, who reached the championship after smashing Bulacan, 13-2, in Saturday’s semifinals, unloaded three runs in the bottom of the third inning to turn a 0-1 deficit into a 3-1 lead and then unleashed a five-run binge in the fourth to blow the game apart.

The victory thus avenged Tanauan’s sorry 11-12 setback to Muntinlupa in Thursday’s second round where the former surged to as many as seven runs after the first inning only to falter in the face of the latter’s searing rally capped by a Justin Mihalik game-winning homer.

In winning the crown, Tanauan clinched the right to represent the country in the Asia-Pacific Regional Qualifier slated July 18-25 in Hong Kong with an eye on the Little League World Series.

Tanauan thus closed out its stint in the tournament, sponsored by The Philippine STAR, Novuland Phil., Inc., Integrated Waste Management, China State Construction, Pepsi and Gatorade, with 10 wins against a lone setback, highlighted by a five-game sweep of Group A in the preliminaries.

Muntinlupa also wound up with a 10-1 slate following a five-game sweep of Group D in the first phase, a four-game sweep of Group A in the second and a 20-12 semis win over five-time champion International Little League Association of Manila before yesterday’s final setback.

Bulacan blasted ILLAM, 11-1, to clinch third place in Little League Baseball.

ILLAM made up for its failed title-retention bid in Little League Baseball play with three victories in other divisions of this meet backed by Muntinlupa City, Constellation Travels, Inc., Max’s Restaurant, Krispy Kreme, Enchanted Kingdom, Shakey’s Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts, Silver Icon, Green Icon, Xcell Properties, Le Soleil de Boracay, Smart, Pagcor and www.muntinlupalittleleague.org.

ILLAM edged Makati, 1-0, to rule the Big League Baseball before fashioning out a 14-2 win and 16-5 triumph over Tanauan City and Muntinlupa City to pocket the Senior League Baseball and Junior League Baseball plums, respectively.

ILLAM’s two other finals setbacks came at the hands of Bacolod, 3-5, in Junior League Softball and Manila, 1-9, in Big League Softball.

The Junior League Softball title was one of the three won by Bacolod, which ruled Little League Softball with a 7-2 win over Cavite and Senior League Softball with an 8-0 whitewashing of Laguna.