Cuba Still Rules in Baseball 5
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There have been three official competitions of Baseball 5 worldwide, and Cuba has ruled in all three: the World Cups in Mexico 2022 and Hong Kong 2024, and the Youth World Cup in Ankara 2023.
Precisely a girl from this last competition, Haila González, was one of the most outstanding now in the top category.
The 2023 Ankara MVP established herself among the elite team's starters and did not disappoint, closing with a .494 average (89-44), 21 runs scored, and 36 RBIs, the latter figure being the highest among all participants.
Captain Briandy Molina was once again the main offensive reference, fourth among hitters with an astronomical average .709 (103-73), only surpassed by the Japanese Taichi Motoike (.759), the French Nathan Guillaume Cregut (.727) and the Tunisian Yahya Gara (.714), but he far surpassed them all in runs scored (43) and RBIs (29).
The other top scorers in the Caribbean performance were Orlando Amador (.684, with 38 runs scored and 21 RBIs) and Cristian Basabe (.625, 20 and 24), but the merit is collective, from the MVP Haila and Briandy (both for the second time because the latter was also in Mexico 2022) without forgetting Lietis Arcia, twice world champion, who only came out to defend in the final moments, and this task has double merit.
The Cuban team only lost one game in the entire competition (where you play two out of three against all rivals), and it was against Japan at the start of the Super Round, although we still won 2-1.
For the title, it was a tornado what fell on the Japanese team, with clear wins of 16x1 and 7x5, to destroy their aspirations of dethroning our team.
It was more than a year of preparation, practically without competing internationally, with the mental and physical wear and tear that this represented for Cuban players, so it’s time to celebrate.
Precisely because we were outside the competitive scenarios we were not leaders of the world ranking, but now the boys put things in their place.
The training time was used efficiently in a modality where tactics play a very important role, because most of the time skill is worth more than strength, and hours and hours of rehearsing where to place each connection has its reward, as do defensive strategies.
Once again Cuba leaves an excellent image in this modality, called to be the standard of the World Baseball and Softball Confederation in the not too distant future. It’s the only pride we have left at the moment, while baseball returns to the winning path of yesteryear, or at least the grit that has been seen sporadically in recent events.
The next important competition of this sport is the second edition of the Youth World Cup, scheduled for next year and will serve as a qualifier for the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar 2026.
Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff
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