Panama beat Czechia 4-2, stay in contention for seventh place
World No. 13 Panama claimed their third win over the tournament by beating Czechia, ranked 14th in the world, 4-2 to move to 3-1 in the Placement Round.
Having finished seventh in 2017 and fifth in the 2013 editions of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup, Panama must wait now wait for the results of world No. 1 Japan (2-0), who play South Africa later on Friday and Italy on Saturday, to see if they finish seventh or eighth.
Panama started the game well with Jayko Medina Arauz scoring in the bottom of the first. But the game remained a one-score ball game until the fifth when Jaime Enrique Escudero Ortiz scored off a Andrés Valderrama De Gracia single up the middle and a Gabriel Gonzalez Ortega triple to center field brought home Omar Vargas Trejos and Joswal Guerra Sanjur.
With Panama leading 4-1, Czechia started a comeback in the sixth with David Jílek scoring before Václav Novák, his side’s hero against Italy on Thursday, claiming his fourth RBI of the tournament - to top the Second Round RBI Leaderboard – by scoring Adam Šťastný. But it was too little too late with Vargas Trejos wrapping up the win from the mound.
Czechia, who finished eighth in 2019 and 2017 and 11th in 2013, will play South Africa in their final game on Saturday to see where they finish amongst the 9-11 ranking spots.