The Villa Clara team lost the possibility of playing in the playoffs of the National Series in Cuba when it succumbed to Artemisa three runs by four, so the eighth ticket to the postseason went to Pinar del Rio.

Havana, May 20 (PL) - The Villa Clara team lost the possibility of playing in the playoffs of the National Series in Cuba when it succumbed to Artemisa three runs to four, so the eighth ticket to the post season went to Pinar del Rio.

With this defeat, the Vegueros of Pinar del Rio advanced to the playoff round along with the teams of Sancti Spiritus, Las Tunas, Granma, Ciego de Avila, Industriales, Mayabeque and Matanzas.

Orange mentor Pedro Jova was dejected by this defeat of Villa Clara, after a streak of six wins in a row in search of qualification.

"My team fought until the last day, but this Thursday they played very bad defense especially in the third inning where the players in the box made three errors that caused two scores from the opponents," said Jova.

He emphasized that as happened throughout the campaign, the team's hitters drove in few runs with runners on base, and offensively they were among the laggards in the National Series.

This mentor, who in the decade of the 90's of the last century won three consecutive national championships and obtained two second places, did not rule out that he could return to take the reins of the so-called Leopards in the next National Series.

"I am going to think about it, I know that people love me, but two or three things have to be fixed in the internal part of the team, as well as in the performance of the team's sponsors", said tersely this man of great results and few words.

For his part, the director of Artemisa, Lázaro Arturo Castro, stressed to this international agency that his team, although already eliminated for the second stage, came out in these three challenges to give a good baseball show.

"Even though we lost the first two games by a blowout, the team always came out with everything to win and to give a good show to the people," said Castro.

"This challenge was, as they say, not suitable for cardiacs, because we faced a quality pitcher like Freddy Asiel Alvarez, but his team did not defend him well and in the end we used two luxury relievers to preserve the victory, such as Misael Villa and Jose Angel Garcia who today recorded his 284 points for games saved".

Castro indicated that he aspires to return to take the reins of Artemisa for the next Cuban championship and improve the preparation period, which this year was not good and was aggravated by the injury of his starting catcher Cosme.