Laso and Imaz ended up lacking mettle and skill in one of the toughest finals in recent years
It had been a long time since baseball fans had seen such a tough and disputed final, so physically and mentally demanding. In the last goals, with Julen Martija feeling that he had returned from the locker room with a wooden leg and Unai Laso being treated by his company’s doctor on the pitch with stiff hamstrings, rather than counting the goals, we were already counting the number of injuries . Altuna and Martija had a small lead, just one goal, 21-20, but it was difficult to know if they could reach 22. There the last one standing would win. The last man standing, as the Anglo-Saxons say. And that was Altuna III, who ended up leading his partner to victory and adding his third consecutive txapela, the first in the Pairs.
More than eight hundred balls to good, alternatives on the scoreboard, bookmakers more active than Wall Street brokers the day Lehman Brothers fell, a bunch of excellent plays, an unexpected comeback, as many as the 7-7 of almost four minutes of duration that ended more due to a fainting than due to an error itself, an extraordinary atmosphere in the crowded stands of the Miribilla fronton… One of those games, in short, that make fans and can not stop liking anyone who he likes sports.
The final had it all, but we chroniclers cannot stop focusing on analyzing -and speculating a bit, let’s not deny it- with that strange turning point that occurred in the match when the electronic scoreboard reflected an 11-17 in favor by Laso and Imaz. It seemed final. Already with 11-15, in his declarations to ETB, Jokin Etxaniz, Aspe’s technician, could be seen dismayed. He looked badly at his pupils. Or rather, he didn’t see Altuna on his level because the truth is that Martija was a titan, carrying out a lot of work, burning more wood than the Marx brothers in the Western locomotive. For his part, Aimar Olaizola, sports director of Baiko, did not want to claim victory before time but he could not fail to express his satisfaction with the performance of Unai Laso and Imaz, who were far superior in the section of the match that was played after the tie to ten.
What happened so that, just at that moment, the great striker from Amezketa and the defender from Etxeberri, that kid with a good face who has not been considered enough to be able to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable activities such as that of manista and pianist, made a stroke of ten points until it was 21-17? Surely there is more than one reason. Some, however, after the four errors in a row, two each, made by Laso and Imaz until the score was 15-17, we couldn’t help but detect at that moment the unfathomable vertigo produced by winning for the first time in a major championship and, above all, outperform the biggest. To Altuna, for example. At the crucial moment, the striker from Bizkarreta and the defender from Oiartzun lacked ground, the know-how of the champions. They sinned as rookies, it’s true. Still, they grew larger after a magnificent battle.
