Panama tops Czechia 4-2, remains in contention for 7th place

World No. 13 Panama claimed their third win over the tournament by beating Czechia, ranked 14^th in the world, 4-2 to move to 3-1 in the Placement Round.

Having finished seventh in 2017 and fifth in the 2013 editions of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup, Panama must now wait for the results of world No. 1 Japan (2-0), who play South Africa later on Friday and Italy on Saturday, to see if they finish seventh or eighth.

Panama started the game well with Jayko Medina Arauz scoring in the bottom of the first. But the game remained a one-score contest until the fifth when Jaime Enrique Escudero Ortiz scored on a Andrés Valderrama De Gracia single up the middle. Gabriel Gonzalez Ortega then tripled to center field to score Omar Vargas Trejos and Joswal Guerra Sanjur.

With Panama leading 4-1, Czechia started a comeback in the sixth with David Jílek scoring before Václav Novák, the hero against Italy on Thursday, claiming his fourth RBI of the tournament -- to top the Second Round RBI Leaderboard – by scoring Adam Šťastný. But it was too little too late with Vargas Trejos wrapping up the win from the mound.

Czechia, who finished eighth in 2019 and 2017 and 11^th in 2013, will play South Africa in their final game on Saturday to see where they finish amongst the 9th-11th in the final U-12 World Cup standings.