July2013

Canada Eliminates China at ISF Junior Women’s World Championship

July 5, 2013

Brampton, ON

Canada Eliminates China at ISF Junior Women’s World Championship

(Brampton, ON) The Canadian Junior Women’s National Team eliminated China with a 4-0 win at the ISF Junior Women’s World Championship after a pair of lengthy rain delays in Brampton. Despite a nearly four hour rain delay at the beginning of the game followed by another 75 minute delay in the sixth, Sara Groenewegen (Surrey, BC) fired a complete game no-hitter, striking out 11 batters.

Aspen Searle (Brantford, ON) led off the game with a double to the left-center field gap, and after a popped up bunt attempt, moved up to third on an illegal pitch before heavy rain interrupted the game. The grounds crew brought out the tarps with rain falling throughout the following few hours, and was able to get the field back in game shape at 3:25pm. When the game resumed, Canada hit two fly balls as they left the runner stranded on first. In the bottom of the frame, Groenewegen got a ground out and two strikeouts.

Team Canada got on the scoreboard in the top of the second inning, as Miranda Castiglione (Brampton, ON) launched a homerun over the left field fence. The next two batters drew walks, with the first runner later scoring on an infield single to shortstop by Searle, giving Canada a 2-0 lead. Groenewegen notched two more strikeout in the bottom of the inning. Canada also went down quickly in the top of the third, and China put the leadoff runner on base with a walk. The runner was sacrificed to second, but Groenewegen got a big strike out then induced a ground ball to second base to end the inning.

In the top of the fourth, Castiglione hit a towering fly ball to left field that popped out of the left fielder’s glove, allowing Castiglione to reach second base on the error. Holly Speers (Surrey, BC) delivered a single up the middle to score Castiglione, and scored on a triple to right field by Emma Entzminger (Victoria, BC) that the right fielder was unable to cut off, increasing Canada’s lead to 4-0. Groenewegen hit the first batter in the bottom of the inning, but Janet Leung (Mississauga, ON) made an amazing diving catch to take away a hit on a line drive to the hole and fired the ball to first to get the runner out easily, who was certain the ball would get through. Groenewegen then proceeded to strike out the next batter.

Both teams went down in order in the fifth, with five out of those batters going down on strikes. Canada went down in order again in the top of the sixth, but before China could come up to bat, the rain came down hard and soaked the field for another hour and fifteen minute rain delay. Groenewegen came back in to pitch following the delay, and promptly struck out the first batter, but hit the second batter. However, she notched another strikeout and forced a fly out to end the inning. Hailey Unger (Winnipeg, MB) managed a two-out single off the pitcher’s glove in the top of the seventh, but the next batter grounded out.

Groenewegen got a fly out to third base, a ground out to shortstop, and struck out the next batter to complete her no-hitter and eliminate China from the tournament.

Searle had two of Canada’s six hits, with the others going to Castiglione (homerun), Entzminger (triple), Unger and Speers.

Box score and play-by-play: Canada 4 vs. China 0

Canada (6-2) will now play the losing team of the game between the United States (7-0) and Australia (6-1), which is currently underway. That game is scheduled to take place at 11:30am on Saturday morning. In other action on Friday, Puerto Rico eliminated Brazil with a 5-3 win, and will play the losing team of the game between Japan (7-0) and New Zealand (5-2), which has just begun.

Korea defeated Botswana 11-3 in the consolation round, but all other games were postponed to Saturday due to the rain.

Live streaming by SportsCanada.tv is available at a one-time cost of $10.00 for the entire tournament, and live Pointstreak scoring will be available free for all tournament games. The official tournament website can be found at http://www.jwwc2013.com.

How to Follow Team Canada

Website

http://www.softball.ca

Twitter

http://www.twitter.com/SoftballCanada

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For more information, please contact:

Gilles LeBlanc
Manager - Marketing and Communications
Softball Canada
(613) 797-7171
gleblanc@softball.ca

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