The decisive final match was extremely even.
Kirittäret vented in front of his home crowd. Vesa Pöppönen / AOP
Jyväskylä’s Kirittäret won the women’s Finnish baseball championship on Sunday. Kirittäret beat Tampere Manse PP in the fourth final match 1–0 (1–0, 1–1).
The series was won by the people of Jyväskylä 3–1.
The championship is Kirittäri’s twelfth under the current club name and 16th in the entire history. Last season, the team missed out on silver in the final.
– When you think about the whole year… We’ve been in the swamp. This crowns the whole season, the most valuable player of the playoffs Eeva Mäki-Maukola said in an interview with Ruuttu with tears in his eyes.
Sunday’s match was extremely even. The one who ended his career in the current season became the decider Emma Körkköwho knocked in both of his team’s runs.
Körkkö homered Mäki-Maukola in the third inning of the second period with a hit from the second side. However, the people from Jyväskylä were able to make the fate of the championship exciting until the end, as Manse came to a 1-1 draw in the last innings.
There were no more runs, and Kirittäret got to celebrate. Manse would have needed a period win for the match to go to the super innings.
Körkko went home Ella Korpelan in the opening period. Kirittäret had time to ventilate the second surface as well, but Manse challenged the situation.
After the video inspection, Mäki-Maukola was whistled for fire. Mäki-Maukola was not able to dive into the home plate, because he was hitting Tinja Töyrylä had left his bat in front of home plate on the home run.
Adversities
The Kirittäri season was colorful. The team experienced a setback in July when the number one game manager Nalle Viljanen had to leave his duties for health reasons.
The 26-year-old, who took over as the club’s second-team manager only in the spring, took over the responsibility Mattias Kitola.
– If we’re being honest, we didn’t think this would be realism, Mäki-Maukola admitted after the championship in an interview with Ruuttu.
Manse, on the other hand, experienced adversity on Saturday. Sacristan Senni Salminen gave up three runs on free hits, and there was a change at the plate Jasmin Andreanen. Andreasen also passed on Sunday.
Manse PP was bronze last year. The silver is the second in the club’s history.