Congratulations to Dominican Republic & Jackie Robinson RBI for winning the 2012 RBI World Series! Dominican picked up their third consecutive title in the Junior Division while Jackie Robinson Jersey City notched their program’s first title by winning the Senior Division.

Oscar Perez, the director of the Dominic Republic RBI program, said the team has been coming to the tournament for the last 10 years and that this win will help them to continue the success by bringing more attention to their team back at home.

“For us, it means a lot because that way we able to motivate and promote initiative for more kids in the Dominican Republic to join the program,” Perez said. “The program requires them to be a good student, to have discipline and baseball comes after that and we hope to keep on winning.”

Dominican Republic beat the Chicago White Sox RBI 5-1 after putting up three big runs in the first inning and relying on the pitching of Pablo Achoa who threw the entire game, allowing just one run after giving up six hits. Achoa’s performance earned him MVP honors for the championship game.

The senior league championship game had a little bit more excitement as Jackie Robinson RBI ended the game with a walk-off single by Willie Rivera to win the title 8-7 over Bradenton. Rivera was also named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

“We lost three games in a row [heading into Saturday’s playoffs],” Rivera said.  “That just put us down. Our coaches told us after those three games, ‘Keep your heads up because we still have more games to win.'”

He added: “We were down four runs [in the championship]. We came back, we fought hard as as a team and we got the W.”

For Coach Ron Hayward, the win is more than just adding a trophy to their collection.

“We have great talent,” he said. “Our kids don’t get the looks a lot of these kids gets. You hear a lot of these kids talk about going Division I out here and my kids are hearing it and they want to know why they don’t get that. I’ve been there, I’ve been there when you wondered why you don’t get that respect that everyone else gets. My kids showed them that they want respect. It’s big for them to come out here and do what they wanted to do which is dominate.”