Palestine wins West Asia Baseball Cup championship
A thrilling title game ends in extra innings & in walk-off fashion
The West Asia Baseball Cup finale was a roller coaster of emotions for fans, but Palestine’s confidence and fortitude never wavered, during their 5-4 victory in 10 innings over rival Pakistan.
Both teams have earned another invite to the Asia Baseball Championship later this year, but this time Palestine will return as the West Asia Baseball Cup champion.
If I had a vote, Rumsey Yasin, Tariq Suboh and Brent Powers would each have mine for player of the tournament. Yasin hit above .500 and drove in 9 runs through 5 games; Suboh hit 4 homers, including two solo shots against Pakistan; Powers pitched two complete games, struck out 28 batters while boasting a 1.42 earned run average—not to mention his gutsy championship performance, where he pitched 10 innings and threw more than 140 pitches en-route to his second win of the tournament.
Palestine struck first in the first inning when third baseman Dylan Ahmad hit a sac-fly in the bottom of the first.
Suboh’s first dinger of the game ignited a two-out rally in the third inning. His solo shot put Palestine ahead 2-0. Ahmad followed that up immediately with a double, before he was driven in by left fielder Yousef Abbasi—who finished the game with a three-hit performance.
Pakistan would make its first run in the middle innings when it cut Palestine’s lead down to one, but Suboh would give Palestine the extra cushion it needed when he hit his second homer of the game in the bottom of the fifth.
The score stayed 4-2 until the bottom of the 9th inning, when a few errant throws led to Pakistan tying the game and forcing extra innings.
Manager Oney Guillen decided to keep Powers in the game for the 10th and final inning and the aggressive decision paid off.
To start extra innings, each team on offense would have the final two batted outs of the previous inning occupy first and second base. Pakistan elected to lay down a bunt to begin their inning. After Palestine intentionally walked Saeed Akhtar to load the bases, Powers struck out Umair Imbad and forced Ikram Ullah to ground out to first base to hold Pakistan scoreless in the 10th.
During the bottom half of the inning, a wild pitch advanced Palestine’s baserunners to second and third base, respectively. This set Yasin up to be the hero he deserved to be. The first baseman drove a pitch to center field for a game-winning sacrifice fly out.
Jubilation ensued. Yasin’s teammates ran him down near third base where he ran into the arms of Palestine Baseball & Softball Federation founder Mahmoud Tafesh.
