Team Canada Crowned 2019 Canada Cup Champions!

Softball Canada – Surrey, B.C. – The Canadian Women’s National Softball Team won their second consecutive Canada Cup title on Sunday, defeating Chinese Taipei 2-1 in the afternoon to earn a spot in the Championship game before doubling Scrapyard International 8-4 to win the Gold medal at the 2019 Canada Cup International Softball Championship.
 
The first game against Taipei was a tense one, with neither team able to muster much in the way of offence. Team Canada broke through first when Emma Entzminger (Victoria, B.C.) hammered a fly ball over the centerfield fence for the 1-0 lead in the top of the second. Chinese Taipei responded in the bottom of the third. With a runner on second, Yi-Suan Su smacked a single up the middle to even the score at 1-1.
 
The tied score held through the final four innings, forcing an extra inning with a runner starting on second for both teams due to the international tiebreaker rule. In the top of the eighth, Joey Lye (Toronto, Ont.) grounded out to advance Janet Leung (Mississauga, Ont.) to third. Leung was then able to scramble home on a ground out to second by Kaleigh Rafter (Guelph, Ont.) to score the winning run. Chinese Taipei was retired on a sacrifice bunt, a pop out and a fly out to end the game.
 
Box Score: Canada 2 vs. Chinese Taipei 1
 
Jenna Caira (Toronto, Ont.) got the start for Canada and went five innings and a third before being replaced by Danielle Lawrie (Langley, B.C.). Caira allowed five hits and only one earned run while striking out six and walking two. Lawrie closed out the game for Team Canada, allowing only a single hit in two and two thirds innings with a strikeout and no walks.
 
In the first meeting between Team Canada and Scrapyard the night before, the Canadian side couldn’t muster anything in the way of offence. In Sunday’s contest, the team had no such problem, putting two runs on the board in the first, second and third to take a commanding 6-0 lead in the Gold medal game.
 
In the first inning with Jennifer Salling (Port Coquitlam, B.C.) on first and Lye on third, Erika Polidori (Brantford, Ont.) doubled on a line drive to right to score both runners. In the next inning, Rafter singled home Entzminger who had walked to lead off the inning. Then, after a Leung sacrifice bunt and a Victoria Hayward (Toronto, Ont.) single, Lye singled home the fourth run of the game for Canada. In the third, Kelsey Jenkins (Delta, B.C.) doubled in the fifth Canadian run of the night and Hayward singled her home for the sixth.
 
The 6-0 lead held up until Scrapyard broke through in the sixth with a two-run home run from R Riley Sartain cut the lead to four. Team Canada got those two runs back in the bottom of the sixth. The first came on an RBI single by Jennifer Gilbert (Saskatoon, Sask.), who later scored on a wild pitch to make it 8-2.
 
In the bottom of the seventh, Scrapyard once again cut into the lead on a two-run home run, but Canada was able to shut the door and secure the win and win the Gold medal.
 
Box Score: Canada 8 vs. Scrapyard International 4
 
Sara Groenewegen (Surrey, B.C.) went the full seven innings in the win, allowing four earned runs on nine hits with five strikeouts and now walks.
 
The Canadian Women’s National Team will now go back to competing as the Canadian Wild of Southern Illinois in the National Pro Fastpitch League (NPF), playing 13 games in a 12 day span to finish their regular season schedule prior to travelling to Lima, Peru for the Pan American Games that will be played August 4-10. The Team will later compete at the WBSC Softball Americas Qualification Event for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo 2020 that will be held August 25 to September 1 in Surrey, B.C.