Santiago, Chile – The Canadian Women’s National Softball Team ended its Super Round schedule with an 8-3 loss to the United States at the Pan American Games on Friday. The game was tied 3-3 going into the bottom of the fourth before the United States took the lead and never looked back.
Team USA opened the scoring in the bottom of the first, taking advantage of an error to put a runner on second base followed by a double to bring her in to score. Canada responded in the top of the second, taking advantage of an error to put its own runner on base before Janet Leung (Mississauga, Ont.) hit a two-run homerun to left to give Canada the lead. However, the Americans started the bottom of the second with a single followed by a two-run blast of their own to go back up 3-2.
Kelsey Harshman (Delta, B.C.) hit a solo homerun in the top of the third to tie the game, and Erika Polidori (Brantford, Ont.) later doubled but was left stranded at second. USA put two runners on base in the bottom of the inning, but Emma Entzminger (Victoria, B.C.) turned a double play by touching her bag at third and firing the ball to first to end the inning with the game tied 3-3.
In the fourth, a hit by pitch and a single by Kianna Jones (Surrey, B.C.) put two runners on for Canada, but the Americans turned a double play of their own on a ground ball to third. The United States then took the lead in the bottom of the frame, putting two runners on base with a walk and a single before they were sacrificed to second and third and the lead runner scoring on a ground ball to shortstop, followed by an RBI single up the middle to take a 5-3 lead.
Canada continued to put runners on base in the fifth, with Natalie Wideman (Mississauga, Ont.) drawing a walk and Polidori later adding a single, but USA was able to get out of the inning on a fielder’s choice and a pair of strikeouts. A two-run double by Sis Bates added two runs to the Americans’ lead in the bottom of the fifth, with Canada turning another double play to end the inning shortly after. USA added another insurance run in the bottom of the sixth. Canada got a runner on base on a hit by pitch with two outs in the seventh, but a fly out to left ended the game.
“Their lineup is really strong top to bottom. Defensively, we prolonged too many innings, gave them too many extra at-bats” said head coach Kaleigh Rafter in her postgame interview. “We knew we had to be clean on both sides of the ball. I think the pitchers kept us in it, they tried to mix their pitches as best they could, but we just had to make a few more plays behind them to come out a little closer than we did.”
Morgan Reimer (Langley, B.C.), Dawn Bodrug (Georgetown, Ont.) and Morgan Rackel (Calgary, Alta.) shared the pitching duties for Canada.
Box Score: United States 8 vs. Canada 3
With the loss, Canada ended the Super Round with a 1-2 record and will play Mexico (0-3) in the bronze medal game at 10:00am local time (9:00am EDT) on Saturday. The United States earned a berth in Saturday’s gold medal game with a 3-0 record after defeating Puerto Rico 11-3, and Puerto Rico (2-1) later beat Mexico 1-0 to advance to the final which that will be played at 1:00pm (noon).
