Baseball

Matanzas remains at the top of the qualifying phase of the 54th National Baseball Series in Cuba after beating Industriales 7-3 on Thursday and became the first team to reach 20 wins this season.

Matanzas' Cocodrilos displayed an amazing offensive of 14 hits, led by short stop Dainer Moreira with 4 hits in 5 times at bat and scored two runs and Yadiel Hernández hit a homer and drove in two runs.

Ciego de Avila kept its pace behind the leader with a win over Isla de la Juventud 11-4. Pitcher Yadir Rabí got his first win, allowing only one hit in seven innings supported by the offensive of catcher Rudeldis García with two hits, including a double and a drove in four runs.

Granma and Artemisa are tied in the third place in the series and showing a good game so far after wining their games on Thursday. Granma's Alazanes beat Cienfuegos' Elefantes 7-5 and Artemisa's Cazadores defeated Las Tunas in a tight game 4-3.

Other results show how Mayabeque escaped the slide beating Pinar del Rio 5-3 and Sancti Spíritus won over Santiago de Cuba 6-0 as Villa Clara defeated Guantánamo 8-3 and Holguín won over Camagüey by knock out 10-0.

The qualifying teams so far are 1- Matanzas (20-10 ), 2- Ciego de Ávila (18-11), 3- Granma (16-10), 4- Artemisa (18-12), 5- Isla de la Juventud (16-12), 6- Industriales (17-13), 7- Villa Clara (16-13), 8- Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba (14-16).

Badminton

Cuban Osleni Guerrero plays Frenchman Lucas Claerbout Friday in the quarterfinals at the Badminton International Cup in Brazil. Guerrero seeks a win to qualify among the first eight of the tournament ending on Sunday.

The Cuban player, 53 in the world ranking, beat on Thursday Brazilian Matheus Voigt without difficulties in three sets with scores of 11-8, 11-8 and 11-3.

Guerrero, second pre-qualified of the event, is one of the favorites to win the Brazilian tournament along with Swedish Henri Hurskainen, U.S. Sattawat Pongnairat and Israeli Misha Zilberman.

Osleni Guerrero, runner up champion of Pan American Games Guadalajara 2011, champion in Pan American Games Santo Domingo 2013 and Toronto 2014, came to Brazil to ratify his supremacy in the continent.

So far, the best player in the Americas has won the Peru and Venezuela Opens while ending third in

Giraldilla de la Habana tournament and Brazil Grand Prix.

Soccer

The CONCACAF Under-20 Soccer Championship Jamaica 2015 draw schedule was announced Thursday Oct. 30. The qualifying event will take place in Kingston and Montego Bay January 9-24. The tournament will qualify four teams directly to the FIFA U-20 World Cup New Zealand 2015.

Group A includes Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, The United States, Guatemala and Panama as group B are Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Canada and Haiti.

Cuba will play Mexico on Day 2, Saturday Jan. 10 at 15.00 hour local time in Montego Bay in its first game of the qualifying group phase.

The Cuban team will play Honduras on day 4 on Monday Jan. 12. at 17:30 hours. On day 7 Thursday Jan. 15, Cuba plays Haiti at 20:00 hours.

The next game is on day 11 Monday, Jan. 19 when our National team plays Canada at 15:00 hours. Cuba's last game of the group phase is versus El Salvador on day 14, Thursday Jan. 22.

The finals takes place on Saturday Jan. 24 between the winners of group A and group B.