NASSAU, Bahamas – As the rain fell on Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium during a fifth-inning rain delay in the championship game at the 2025 Caribbean Baseball Cup, spirits were high.
Despite being down 3-1, the Bahamas fans, nearly 2,000 of them stuck around despite the rain delay, some of them pounding out a junkanoo beat on drums while others blew horns and whistles in time with the drummers.
It was a celebration. The Bahamas had never reached the title game before. They had just scored their first run of the game on triple by Chavez Young.
But when the rain finally stopped, it had cooled the Bahamian bats, and in the sixth, Curacao’s Newton Shervyen launched a two-run homer over the right-field wall that all but put the game away.
With the 5-1 win, Curacao took the last berth in the 2026 Central American and Caribbean Games, which will be played in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in July.
In Curacao, a small island with a population of around 150,000 located off the coast of Venezuela, baseball is a favorite sport. The tiny island has put more players in Major League Baseball per capita than anywhere else in the world.
“I mean, it’s everything. Besides soccer, baseball is everything back home,” said Curacao infielder Darren Sefarina after the win. “You start playing since three or four years old, everyone at the same age. It’s a big sport back home for us.”
Curacao wasted no time, with leadoff man Raysheandell Michel singling to right on the first pitch of the game. Sefarina grounded into a fielder’s choice at second, and the Bahamas just missed a 4-6-3 double play when Sefarina beat the throw from shortstop Cherif Neymour to the bag. Sefarina then stole second and scored on a single to left by Dudley Leonora to give Curacao a 1-0 lead.
The Curacao game plan to stop the Bahamas was to stifle their speed and scrappy hitting, and they largely did so.
“It was basically for our pitchers to throw strikes, attack the strike zone, make them make contact, and trust our defense. We take a lot of pride in our defense,” said Curacao manager Carlos Pineda. “For Bahamas, it was to neutralize their running game. They’re very good running the bases. They’re very good hitting the ball and hustling. So we did a pretty good job on that.”
They did, though not without some difficulty in the third, when they escaped a two-out, bases-loaded jam with a strikeout of Chavez Young.
In the top of the fifth, Michel drew a leadoff walk, and Sefarina followed with a single, giving Curacao runners at first and second with no outs. Ericson Leonora then laced a single into the left field corner, scoring Michel and Sefarina to make it 3-0. With Leonora on second and two outs, Mairo Martinus lashed a ball deep to the left-center field gap, but Bahamas right fielder Pheron Carlton ran down what would have been an extra-base hit on the warning track to end the inning
Ericson Leonora with a two run double and Curaçao takes a 3-0 lead over The Bahamas pic.twitter.com/34O10I0zMl
— Jeff Duda (@INTLBaseball24) December 9, 2025
But the Bahamas wasn’t done. In the top of the sixth, Young drove in Daalen Adderley with a triple to right-center as the rain began to fall, getting the Bahamas on the board. After Young reached third base, the showers intensified and the umpires pulled both teams off the field.
After 30 or so minutes under cover, the rain stopped, and so did the Bahamas rally.
Up came Curacao in the bottom of the sixth, and with Phildrick Llewellyn on first, Newton Shervyen teed off on a fastball that silenced the home crowd.
“I was just looking for a pitch in my zone because I’ve been hitting it off the end all the whole tournament. I was just locked in, looking for my pitch and put a good swing on it,” Shervyen said.
Though Shervyen was batting in the ninth spot, the homer was no big surprise.
“We called it,” Pineda said. “We knew it’s gonna crush it before the tournament was over.”
He did, and with it, secured Curacao’s second Caribbean Baseball Cup title and fifth medal at the event.
And for the Bahamas, it was a loss, but not a defeat. Several thousand fans came out to watch their national team win their first medal at the Caribbean Baseball Cup at their national baseball stadium, laying the groundwork for future success.
U.S Virgin Islands 6, Sint Maarten 4 – The U.S. Virgin Islands held off late rallies by Sint Maarten, escaping a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the bottom of the sixth and stopping a two-run, two-out rally in the bottom of the seventh to claim third place at the 2026 Caribbean Cup.
The win marked the third time the U.S.V.I. had finished third at the event, having done so in 2018 and 2019. They finished second at last year’s event, also held in Nassau, falling to Curacao in the championship game.
Starter Tranetham Devin Bo threw four scoreless innings, striking out six and walking four.
The top of the order drove the Virgin Islands’ offense, with leadoff man Zayda Brannigan going 3-for-5 with two doubles, two runs scored, and an RBI, and Ervin Dorsette Jr. went 1-for-3 and scored twice.
Photo: Curacao won the 2025 Caribbean Baseball Cup with a 5-1 win against the Bahamas. (Courtesy of COCABE)
