Junior Women's Pan American Championship III FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 9, 2010
Canada bounces back with win at III Pan American Softball Championship (Bogota, Colombia) The Canadian Junior Women's National Team rebounded from a surprising first game loss to Brazil and scored a come from behind 6-3 win over Argentina, who suffered their first loss of the Pan American Championship in Bogota. Canada found themselves down 2-0 after the top of the first after an error on a lead off bunt, an infield single and a double. The red and white showed some resiliency as they answered right back with two runs in the bottom of the first. With one out, Victoria Hayward (Mountain View, California) and Jacqueline Omichinski (Abbotsford, BC) both drew walks and with two out, Natasha Szlapetis (Brampton, ON) drove a line drive to the gap in left field for a stand up double and drove in Canada's first two runs. In the second inning, Canada got the first two outs but gave up a single then committed their second error on a ground ball to allow Argentina to score their third run. After two walks, Argentina loaded the bases and Canada's starting pitcher Karissa Hovinga (La Vista, Nebraska) was replaced by Natalie Becker (Waterloo, ON) who promptly stopped the rally with a pop up to short. Canada answered back again in their half of the inning when Kristy Noble (Uxbridge, ON) was safe advancing to second on an error and scored to tie the game when Shannon Davidson (Whitby, ON) hit a single to centerfield. Canada took the lead in the third as Omichinski led off with a ground-rule double through the fence and moved to third on a Katelyn Bedwell (White Rock, BC) sacrifice bunt and scored when Szlapetis drove another line drive to left field for a sacrifice fly. In the fourth, Becker got in trouble as she loaded the bases with one out but settled down and struck out Argentina's third and fourth hitters to end the threat. Canada finally put the game away when they scored two more runs in the bottom of the sixth when Kristy Noble led off the inning with an inside the park homerun. With one out, Jennifer Gilbert (Mckinney, Texas) singled and Victoria Hayward hit a slap off the third baseman's glove and Gilbert was retired at second. Hayward stole second and scored on Omichinski's second double of the game to put Canada up by three. Becker closed the game as she gave up a leadoff walk and struck out the side to end the game. Becker went five and a third innings and gave up two hits and struck out seven in relief of Hovinga, who went one and two thirds and gave up three hits and three runs with two strikeouts. Canada outhit Argentina as Omichinski led the way with a pair of doubles, Davidson chipped in with two hits, Noble homered, Szlapetis doubled with Gilbert, Bedwell and Natalie Wideman (Mississauga, ON) adding singles. Canada is now 1-1 and will have the day off on Monday. They will play the host team from Colombia on Tuesday at 4:00pm EDT. Tournament scores (updated at the end of each day) can be found at the following website (in Spanish): http://festivaldeverano2010.idrd.gov.co/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=15&Itemid=178 -SC- For more information, please contact: Gilles LeBlanc Manager - Marketing and Communications Softball Canada (613) 523-3386 ext. 3105 glebl...@softball.ca Al's Fastball News *Email: fastball(at)pmihrm.com fastb...@pmihrm.com NEWS-1: http://www.AlsFastball.com/ NEWS-2: http://fastpitchwest.com/alsfastball ISC World Tournament 2010: http://www.iscfastpitch.com/index.php?page=200 VIA http://www.webbox.com _______________________________________________ Alsfastball mailing list Alsfastball@fastpitchwest.com http://fastpitchwest.com/mailman/listinfo/alsfastball_fastpitchwest.com