(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo courtesy of Federación Costarricense de Beisbol)
  Zeta Gas wins Copa Independencia
Nederlands
 SAN JOSÉ (Costa Rica) -
Zeta Gas has repeated as winner of the Torneo Copa Independencia de Béisbol, a competition between baseball-teams from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
On Sunday (November 13), at Parque de Pelota Antonio Escarré in Costa Rican capital San José, Zeta Gas won Game 2 of the best-of-three Final against Transtica Santo Domingo, 11-10.
Zeta Gas won the game in the bottom of the last inning on a wild pitch by Venezuelan pitcher Guillermo Rodríguez, which enabled Carlos Castro to score the winning run.
Initially, it was Transtica that controlled the game, as the Dominican squad led 8-0 halfway the fifth inning.
From the sixth inning on, Zeta Gas started to come back.
The team from San José scored one run in the fifth, then added two in both the sixth and seventh inning to narrow the deficit to only 8-5.
Transtica took some more distance in the eighth, scoring two runs to lift the lead to 10-5.
In the ninth, Frank Soto homered for Zeta Gas.
The homerun stimulated the team, which then staged a great comeback.
Zeta Gas added five more runs, with the last one being scored on the wild pitch, to win the game and the competition.
A week ago, on Sunday (November 6), Zeta Gas won the first game with an 8-6 score.
That game also was played in San José.
...Zeta Gas celebrates the championship...
(© Photo courtesy of Federación Costarricense de Beisbol) |
In the opener, Zeta Gas took an early lead, scoring twice in the second and third inning.
Trailing 6-1, Transtica scored four runs to make it a 6-5 score.
But in the ninth, Zeta Gas added two insurance runs and that was enough for the win.
Marlon Pérez started as pitcher for Zeta Gas and did very well, while Frank Soto also homered in this game.
In the competition, which opened in August, Frank Soto also was one of the leading hitters.
He batted .444, collected 12 basehits, including three homeruns and had 13 RBI's.
In a story regarding Soto, who is from the Dominican Republic, it was told that he also lived in Nicaragua before coming to Costa Rica, hoping to earn more money to support his family.
Soto played baseball in both his home country and in Nicaragua.
In Costa Rica, he also picked up baseball again and nowadays, Soto works for Zeta Gas, which is a national gas company and also is the sponsor of the team he plays for.
Five teams played in the competition with the top-four advancing to the best-of-three semi-finals.
All teams faced each other twice, so each team played eight games.
In the final standings, Cachorros ended up in a tie for fourth place with King Ocean Santo Domingo.
The latter then advanced based on the runs given up in the head-to-head games against Cachorros.
King Ocean gave up 18, Cachorros gave up 19.
Zeta Gas, which finished in second place, was the first to reach the Final after sweeping Dantos in two games, which were played in San José.
At Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, Transtica, which finished in first place, needed three games to win against King Ocean and become the second finalist.
(November 14)
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