Juan Maratita

Juan Ulloa Maratita

• Born March 18, 1993

Juan Maratita has been on the Northern Mariana Islands national team.

He starred for the team when they won the 2011 Pacific Games. Things did not start well when he grounded into a double play his first at-bat, against Palau's Kalson Dulei, but he later doubled off Dulei. He really dazzled late as the tourney went on, with six runs in one day (three against New Caledonia, three against Palau) as his team won the quarterfinals and semifinals that day. Entering the Gold Medal Game, he had hit .360/.429/.600 with 9 runs, 4 doubles and 4 steals (never caught) in 7 games while handling four putouts and 13 assists error-free. He tied Jerome de los Santos for 7th in the Games in average (not counting the Gold Medal Game, which did not count for statistical leader purposes), was third in slugging (behind Guam's Rico Castro and Jim Reyes), tied Manuel Sablan Jr. for 9th in OBP, led in runs (two ahead of Jesus Iguel and B.J. Balajadia), tied de los Santos for 4th in hits (9), led in doubles (one ahead of Brieuc Mallet and Byron Kaipat), 5th in steals, tied for 4th in sacrifice hits (2), tied de los Santos for 8th in assists and led all non-first baseman infielders with error-free chances. In the Gold Medal Game, he batted second and manned third base. He was retired by Freddy Cepeda Jr. in the first. In the third, he hit into a run-scoring error to put the Islands ahead, 3-2, against Guam then he stole a base and came around to score an insurance run. With a 4-3 lead in the 5th, he singled home Tyrone Omar with what would be the winning run then stole again. He added a single in the 8th off Alexander Cruz before fanning in the 9th against Paul Pangelinan.

He later was president of the Northern Mariana Islands Softball Association