Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

SWING AND A MISS – Australia’s Liam O'Leary misses on a pitch from Canadian Sean Cleary during their pool A game of the 2017 Men's World Softball Championship. Australia fell 9-4 to the unbeaten Canadians.

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

UNDEFEATED – Canadian outfielders, from left, Mark Johnson and Brad Ezekiel, celebrate during the 2017 Men's World Softball Championship.

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

Image title

Photo by Marissa Tiel

Image title

Photo by Marissa Tiel

Image title

Photo by Marissa Tiel

Image title

Photo by Marissa Tiel

Image title

Photo by Marissa Tiel

Image title

Photo by Marissa Tiel

Canada continues unbeaten streak at world championships

Team Canada continued their winning streak

By Marissa Tiel on July 12, 2017

Team Canada continued their winning streak at the 2017 Men’s World Softball Championship with a 9-4 win over Australia Tuesday night.

“We’ve got a motto as a team, it’s one step at a time, so this is just another step along the ladder,” said thirdbaseman Derek Mayson.

“We do have benchmark games and Australia is one of them because they’re a very deep team, they’ve got some of the best pitching in the world. So we knew we were in for a tough game.”

With the stands packed around Pepsi 1 at the Pepsi Softball Centre, the Australians (3-1 going into the game) and the Canadians (4-0) went scoreless in the first inning as Canadian pitcher Sean Cleary got the first three of 15 strikeouts.

He continued to settle into the second inning, but the Australian bats took advantage, with Mark Harris picking up a run and Brendan O’Byrne hitting home run with two runners on base.

The four-point second inning would be Australia’s last run-scoring inning of the game.

“It was a tough loss after the start the guys put in. They put in a solid start,” said Australian coach Laing Harrow. “Give Canada credit. They came back and they came back very hard. I think the guys understand you have to play seven innings.”

In the second inning, Brad Ezekiel got on base to lead the Canadians and Ryan Boland hit a grand slam to tie the game up.

They kept the momentum going in the third inning as Derek Mayson found a hole to bring Ezekiel in to score.

Also scoring for Canada were Stephen Mullaley, Blake Hunter and Mark Johnson.

Coach John Stuart called the match a “momentum-building game.”

“We’ve preached with our team all along, it’s just one game at a time, one step up the ladder,” he said. “We have a very calm and patient team and it trickles right down and it showed tonight.”

The host team wants to go unbeaten into the championship game and utilizes equally strong pitching and batting.

Cleary pitched an error-free game, allowing only five hits against 31 batters.

With three starting pitchers on the team, Stuart said they may leave the pitchers on the mound longer now than at the beginning of the tournament.

“Now when you’re getting down to the crunch time with these big games, we’re going to probably let our starters go a little longer,” he said. “But we’ve always got two guys ready to go out in case.”

Australia, by contrast, used three pitchers in the game, swapping starter Harrison Peters for Adam Folkard early in the second inning and bringing in Jarryd Farrell in the fifth inning.

If the Australians want to keep their hope of finishing in the top-two of their pool alive, they’ll have to beat Argentina (4-1) at 5:30 tonight.

After a practice and video session today, the Canadians will face Dominican Republic (3-2) at 7 p.m.

“We’ll tell our players that it really is just another game and we feel that whoever we put in the lineup is going to do the job and we feel that we can beat any team in this tournament,” said Stuart. “It’s just another game, but let’s make sure we go out there and win it.”

A look at some other highlights:

South Africa vs. Hong Kong (10-4): South Africa picked up its first win of the tournament, dropping Hong Kong in four innings. They play India at 12:30 p.m. today, while Hong Kong faced the United States at 11:30 a.m., losing 16-0.

Denmark vs. Turkey(23-0): Denmark picked up their third win of the tournament as they downed Men’s World Softball Championship freshman Turkey in three innings. Denmark next faces New Zealand (4-1) at 3 p.m. today. Both Turkey and Great Britain will be on the hunt for their first wins of the tournament this afternoon at 2 p.m.

Botswana vs. Czech Republic (1-0): Botswana continues to sneak by teams with a narrow margin of victory, as they picked up their third 1-0 win against the Czech Republic. They faced Venezuela this morning falling 7-1. Czech Republic will face Japan (4-1) at 4:30 p.m.

Argentina vs. India (11-0): Argentina picked up their fourth win of the tournament with a lopsided victory over India. India, which is in its first year in the tournament is still searching for their first win, but it was not to come against the current world number-three team. They faced South Africa at 12:30 p.m. today. Argentina goes up against Australia at 5:30 p.m. for a battle for second place in pool A.

Japan vs. Great Britain (14-0): The current world-number 2 Japan offered no easy outs for Great Britain, earning a lopsided victory in their second game of the day. They face the Czech Republic at 4:30 p.m. and Great Britain plays Turkey at 2 p.m.

Venezuela vs. New Zealand (7-3): Venezuela, currently ranked number seven in the world upset world number-one New Zealand Tuesday night. It’s the first time they’ve ever beaten the island nation at the men’s world championships.

Venezuela continued its upward momentum with a 7-1 win over Botswana this morning. New Zealand faces Denmark at 3 p.m. today.

Men’s World Softball Championship current standings

As of press time today

Pool A

1 Canada 5 - 0
2 Argentina 4 - 1
3 Australia 3 - 2
3 Dominican Republic 3 - 2
3 United States 3 - 2
6 Hong Kong 1 - 4
6 South Africa 1 - 4
8 India 0 - 5

Pool B

1 Japan 4 - 1
1 New Zealand 4 - 1
1 Venezuela 4 - 1
4 Botswana 3 - 2
4 Denamrk 3 - 2
6 Czech Republic 2 - 3
7 Great Britain 0 - 5
7 Turkey 0 - 5

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