Curacao club continues comebacks Adversity fails to derail team

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Willemstad, Curacao, has taken probably the most circuitous route possible to Saturday’s Senior League World Series championship game.

It lost to a team from Maricaibo, Venezuela, in the Latin America regional championship game, but gained new life when the Venezuelan team was disqualified from the SLWS for using an ineligible player.

Then a walk-off 5-4 loss to Upper Deerfield, N.J., during its final game of SLWS pool play at Mansfield Stadium on Thursday left Curacao at 2-2 and needing help to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2003.

In fact, rumors abounded that at least some of the team had left Bangor on Thursday afternoon bound for Williamsport, Pa., where another team from the Pabao Little League begins play in the Little League World Series on Saturday morning.

“No, no, no, it’s not true,” said Curacao manager Roque Bernadina. “All of the guys were here to see [Thursday] night’s game. It was a rumor, and it stays a rumor.”

It’s fortunate the team did stick around, because the news got better Thursday night when U.S. Central champion New Philadelphia, Ohio, defeated Bryan, Texas, 6-1, of the U.S. Southwest, resulting in a three-way tie for the second and final semifinal berth from Pool B.

Curacao won the first tiebreaker – defensive run differential – by allowing 11 runs in pool play compared to 18 runs for New Philadelphia, Ohio, and 23 for Bryan, Texas.

Their semifinal victory didn’t come easily, either, as Curacao took a 6-0 second-inning lead before holding on for an 8-7 victory over Boynton Beach, Fla., on Friday.

But now they’re just one win away from becoming the second team from Curacao to win the SLWS since it first was moved to Bangor in 2002.

“You can say it’s destiny. It’s God’s will, I say,” said Bernadina of his team’s unlikely run to a rematch against Upper Deerfield, N.J. in Saturday’s 3 p.m. championship game. “Before we started practice, our goal was to reach the World Series. I think we had some faith, and it’s worked out and we’re here and [Saturday] we’ll be strong.”

One is the magic number

When Upper Deerfield, N.J., center fielder Barry Larro hit a two-out triple in the first inning and then scored after an error on the same play, he had no sense that his run would be the difference in his team’s 1-0 semifinal victory over Whalley, British Columbia.

And he had even less of a notion that his triple would be his team’s lone hit.

“If you had asked me if that was going to be the final score and that was going to be our only hit, I would have called you crazy, man,” said Larro. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Upper Deerfield will attempt to become the first U.S. East team to win the Senior League World Series since Freehold Township, N.J., defeated the El Rio Little League of Oxnard, Calif., 10-1, in the 2004 final.

“Our goal was to make it here, but now it’s definitely to go all the way,” said Larro. “We made it two years ago [to the Junior League World Series] and we weren’t happy getting knocked out. This year we knew we had a team to go all the way, we just had to play baseball, and now we’ve reached our goal to make it to the final game.

“This is big.”

Nylund battles bone chip

Whalley, British Columbia, pitcher Carsen Nylund suffered the toughest of defeats in his team’s 1-0 loss to Upper Deerfield, N.J., during Friday’s semifinals.

He allowed just one hit and no earned runs over five innings despite nursing a bone chip in his right elbow that limited his work on the mound this summer after he was the ace of the Whalley staff that went 2-2 in pool play at the 2007 SLWS.

Nylund threw just 63 pitches in his first start of this year’s SLWS, striking out five and walking one while relying mostly on the most unpredictable of pitches, the knuckleball..

“I’ve had a sore arm the whole season,” said Nylund, “so I went out there and tried to throw fastballs, but I couldn’t throw them very fast and it started bothering me so I threw knuckleballs the rest of the game.”

Upper Deerfield’s unfamiliarity with knuckleball pitchers worked to Nylund’s advantage as he allowed just two more baserunners after Barry Larro tripled and scored on an error in the first inning.

“It seemed like after we were on his fastball a little bit the first two innings, he started to mix it up with his knuckleball,” said Larro. “He was getting his knuckleball over and the umpire was calling it for strikes a lot on the outside corner and he stuck with it. He was smart, he just kept throwing the knuckleball and it was working for him.

“And I’m not going to lie, it had some movement on it. It was dropping a lot, every pitch. He was tough to hit.”

Nylund’s semifinal start came after two relief appearances that produced a win and a save.

In Whalley’s opener against Maine District 3 champion Bangor, Nylund allowed one hit and no runs while striking out two and walking no one over three innings.

He followed that up Thursday with a scoreless two-inning stint to preserve a 2-1 victory over Pearl City, Hawaii.

“I developed a bone chip in my right elbow earlier this year,” said Nylund, who did not pitch during Whalley’s regular season and only sparingly in qualifying tournaments for the SLWS. “I just came down just in case we needed a pitcher, and then I just decided to go.”