Several years before establishing himself as one of Mexico’s finest youth baseball pitchers, Cesar Cebreros was a talented hitter and outfielder.

Given a chance to play the field Saturday afternoon when teammate Jorge Hernandez was ejected after a collision at the plate with Puerto Rican catcher Richard Gonzalez, Cebreros hit a game-winning, two-run homer in the top of the 10th inning in Mexico’s 6-5 Colt World Series victory.

Puerto Rico (2-1) pulled within one run in the bottom of the 10th and had the potential tying run at third with two outs, but Mexican relief pitcher Cristian Osuna struck out Angel Flores to end the four-hour game.

The marathon included 22 hits, 10 walks, eight hit batsmen, four wild pitches, four errors, a balk, 25 runners left on base, an ejection, five discussions at the plate and countless trips to the mound by the respective coaches.

In the end, a two-out, 10th-inning walk to Magdiel Valenzuela set the stage for Mexican pitching ace Cebreros, who hit a two-strike fastball over the wall in left field. Until his home run, Cebreros was 0-for-3

He had nine strikeouts in a CWS victory against Germany.

"It was just a struggle getting there to the last inning," Cebreros said through an interpreter. "Thank God, everything worked out all right. I was trying to hit a line drive … just figure something out. I hit a fastball that was in the middle of the plate.

"When I hit it, I thought it was gone. It felt good off the bat. That was one of the most emotionally charged games I’ve played in."

Puerto Rico, which finished second in the 2008 CWS, trailed 4-2 entering the bottom of the seventh but tied it on Thomas Nido’s RBI single and a wild pitch. Angel Flores represented the winning run in the bottom of the eighth, but Christian E. Rivera grounded out with two outs.

When the game went to the 10th, Mexico manager Alvaro Castro thought his team might win it.

"Cebreros was a tremendous outfielder and hitter before he was a pitcher," Castro said. "He is a tremendously diverse player. He was holding back on the bat, and I kept on telling him to let it go. Eventually, he let it go, and that’s what happened.

"That definitely was one of the most emotional games I’ve been involved in during my 34 years of coaching. I’ve seen a lot of things in this game. It wasn’t the wildest game ever, but it ranks right up there."

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