BANGOR, Maine — Superior performance on the field and an act of nature have combined to provide this year’s Senior League World Series with its first qualifier.
The Asia Pacific Junior, Senior and Big League regional baseball tournaments were cut short over the weekend by Tropical Storm Chan-hom.
That left the teams with the best records in their respective tournaments, including host Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands at the Senior League level, to be crowned regional champions, according to the Saipan Tribune.
The Senior League World Series will be held Aug. 2-8 at Mansfield Stadium.
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which also appeared in last year’s Senior League World Series, had a 5-0 record in Asia Pacific pool play before the remainder of the tournament was cancelled. Other teams in that regional were from Guam, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
Chinese Taipei was awarded the Asia Pacific championships in the Big League and Junior League divisions. Chinese Taipei was the 2014 Junior League World Series champion.
Asia Pacific tournament officials first were alerted on Thursday to the likelihood that Tropical Storm Chan-hom would target the island of Saipan where the tournaments were being held.
Heavy rain forced the cancellation of games scheduled for Saturday as the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Office upgraded Chan-hom to Category 1-equivalent typhoon strength.
The storm was predicted to make its direct hit on Saipan about 4 p.m. local time Sunday, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, and peak with 138 mph sustained winds and 167 mph gusts.
James Ada, Asia Pacific tournament director, received an email from Little League headquarters about noon Sunday announcing the cancellation of the remainder of the tournament, the Tribune reported.
“The Little League headquarters declared Chinese-Taipei and the [Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands] as the winners of the tournament since they have the best record in pool play. They will again represent the Asia Pacific region in their respective World Series,” said Ada.
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a chain of 14 tropical islands in the North Pacific Ocean about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines, will be represented in the Senior League World Series for the fifth time since the tournament was moved to Bangor in 2002.
The team went 2-2 in pool play in both 2004 and 2007 and 0-4 in 2010 and 2014.
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands will play its first game of this year’s Senior League World Series — being staged for the first time under a modified double-elimination format rather than pool play — at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 2, against the Europe-Africa qualifier.
The winner of that game will face Maine District 3 in a winners’ bracket game at 1 p.m. Monday, Aug. 3. The host team received a first-day bye for this year’s tournament during a blind draw conducted on June 24.
