Army SC came up with a brilliant performance to beat the defending champions Navy in the National Baseball League final yesterday at Diyagama seven runs to five.
Navy won the toss and electing to do the batting lost three players in quick time without scoring a single run. Coming in to bat Army too had the same fate and the game took a challenging one for both teams.
However both teams got into their acts seriously and at one stage it was on equal terms with 1-1.
Army got on to the lead in the fifth innings scoring three runs to take the lead but failed to maintain the tempo as Navy reduced the lead collecting a run to be 4-2.
Navy in the following innings fought hard using all their experience and skills to dominate the game. Army never allowed the their opponents to collect runs with their superb fielding which saw Navy lose batters without scoring on two innings. This helped Army take full control
of the game and added three points to their total to make it 6-4.
In the seventh inning they collected another run to be on 6-5. Army coming on to bat in this could manage only a single run and it was 7-5 but as Navy failed to add any runs Army without facing the ninth and final inning ended as the winner.
The Army team was led by Sameera Ratnayakea while Navy was led by Tharindu Madumal. The Championship was organized by the Sri Lanka Baseball Federation with the fullest co-operation of the chief country representative of JAICA Fusato Tanaka.
Japanese who served as coaches Hiroko Yamada, Risa Kagawa, Ayaku Rokkaku, Shimura Akiko and Kazuya Yagi returned to the island specially to witness the National League Championship.
Coaches Takanao Nishiyo and Hiro Taka who are in the island on a two-year coaching stint with the help of Jaica played a vital role in organizing the event.
Japanese ambassador Akiro Sukiyama and madam Akira Sugiyam were the was the chief guests at the closing ceremony and presented the main awards.
Best Batter : Niroshan Sriyaratne (Army)
Best Pitcher : U. Silva (Army)
Best Fielder : Thushara Wickramasinghe (Navy)
Man of the Final : Tharindu Gayan (Army)
Most Valuable Player : Gayan Tharindu (Army)