Noelvis Entenza, very efficient in Cuban baseball postseasons.

Since the Cienfuegos native Noelvis Entenza started pitching with the Matanzas team in the 59th season, he has participated in six postseason tournaments, including the Second Elite League, with results that contributed a lot to the two first places and two second places achieved by the Cocodrilos.

Since the Cienfuegos-born Noelvis Entenza began pitching with the Matanzas team in the 59th season (2019-2020), he has participated in six postseason tournaments, including the Second Elite League, with results that contributed a lot to the two first places and two second places achieved by the Crocodiles.

Always willing to work, either as starter or reliever, Entenza has won the affection of the Matanzas fans.

In his first post-season with Matanzas he obtained two wins and one failure: in the semifinals, he defeated Las Tunas five runs by three, on January 7th, 2020, in the Victoria de Girón; on the 12th he lost in the final against Camagüey eight by zero, but he managed to get revenge for that setback on the 18th by winning twelve runs by two in the game that gave Matanzas the victory, the first victory of a team with that name in the National Series.

That year, Noelvis had pitched a zero-hit, zero-run game against Granma on November 4th.

For Series 60, in the quarterfinals he saves a game against Cienfuegos, on February 12th, 2021 and on the 14th he defeats them 11 – 4.

In the semifinals, it lost to Las Tunas 10-6, on March 8th and four days later it obtained a point for a saved game. In the final of that series, he beat Granma 4-3, in relief. It was his hundredth victory in the National Series. That decisive stage was won by Granma, second place went to Matanzas and third place to Las Tunas.

The team led by coach Armando Ferrer qualified again for the play offs, to the 61st National Series to repeat its second place against Granma. Entenza continued to show courage in every outing and managed to beat Sancti Spíritus 5-4 in the semifinals on June 9th, 2022, at the José Antonio Huelga stadium of the defeated team. The following day he also won as a reliever and on June 14th he saved the game.

During Series 62, at the Victoria de Girón, he defeated Artemisa 8-3. He did not play against Las Tunas in the semifinal, but in the final he imposed his pitching against Granma, again, at the Mártires de Barbado stadium, in Bayamo, and won with a score of four to one, on June 18th. On June 23rd, he saves the game for Matanzas, which he repeats the following day.

The Second Elite League gave Entenza two victories in the play offs: on January 13th of this year against Las Tunas, with a score of six to four and in the final it is the winner of the decisive match against Artemisa and that gives the triumph to Matanzas. This encounter, staged here in the Matanzas stadium, ended 12 to 5.

To these results let’s add the two consecutive saved games accumulated against Granma in the quarterfinals of the 63rd National Series.

In total in post-seasons with Matanzas teams, Noelvis Entenza accumulates ten wins, two losses and seven saved games.

Previously, in four playoff games, pitching for Cienfuegos, he won three games and lost five and in two finals with Industriales, he did not win and lost twice. With Granma, in the 2016 to 2017 Series he contributed to the first place of the Alazanes, as a backup, with three hits without failures.

As an interesting fact, before pitching for Matanzas, the southern right-hander had defeated the Yumurinos in the playoffs, twice in the 2016-2017 season, as a reinforcement of Granma.

His lifetime work in those decisive phases of Cuban championships is 16 wins, nine losses and seven saves. Good result.

Written by Francisco Soriano.