Cuba Baseball Season Ends, Ciego de Avila Repeats as Champs

HAVANA TIMES — The 2015-2016 Cuban baseball season came to end on Sunday with Ciego de Avila winning game seven of the championship series 8-0 over Pinar del Rio.  Ciego repeated as the league champions.

Dachel Duquesne pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing six hits, and two perfect innings of relief from Yunier Cano gave Ciego the win before their ecstatic home crowd.

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Pinar del Río had erased an 0-3 deficit in the best-of-seven series to force the tie-breaker.

Erlis Casanova took the loss after allowing Ciego’s first two runs in the third inning.  He was followed by Vladmir Baños and Frank Medina, both ineffective, allowing three runs each. Yaifredo Dominguez pitched the final three scoreless innings.

Luis Moiran, Jose Adolis Garcia and Guillermo Aviles, who homered, drove in two runs each to lead the Ciego hitting. Yoelvis Fiss also had two doubles and drove in a run.

In all, Ciego de Avila out hit Pinar 12 to 6 in what became a lopsided game in the fifth and six innings.

This was the third time this decade that Ciego de Avila wins the title, under the guidance of manager Roger Machado (2011-2012, 2014-2015 and now 2015-2016)-