Baseball Canada – SANTO DOMINGO, DR – The Mexican defenders were chasing Emma Carr’s hits all over Estadio Quisqueya Juan Marichal today.  She hit one so hard that her teammate couldn’t even get out of the way of it on time and was called out in the second inning!  The centre fielder from Toronto had two hits for the third consecutive game as Canada beat Mexico 7-3 to wrap up the round-robin portion of the inaugural U20 Women’s International Cup tournament with a perfect 3-0 record.

Canada will play in one semi-final at 2pm tomorrow, against one of Mexico, Cuba or host Dominican Republic depending on the result of the Dominican Republic/Mexico game tomorrow morning that was suspended due to rain. The semi-final losers play for Bronze at 10am Sunday, while the winners play for Gold at 2pm.  All times are EST, and Twitter updates can be viewed @Team_C_Updates.

Carr, 18, one of only three members of this squad to have logged time with the Senior Women’s National Team, ripped a double to left centre field in the top of the first, reached third on Daphnée Gélinas’ fly out, and scored when the shortstop booted Pascale Jalbert’s hard grounder.  With two out, Isabella Denis drove a double to the left field corner to score Jalbert, and came home on Clair Eccles RBI-single.  Eccles scored on a misplay, giving Canada a 4-0 lead before Mexico came to bat.

From that point on, each team scored three over the last six and a half innings, with Mexico plating one in the bottom of the first, as Canada’s starter, Ottawa’s Tess Forman, had a bit of a rocky start but contained them to just one run, and two more in the fifth to narrow the score to 5-3.

Marie Roy led off the fourth by beating out a swinging bunt, made it to third base on Teulon, MB’s Jade Ledochowski’s single up the middle, and scored on Carr’s sacrifice fly to left.  In the sixth, Ledochowski repeated the feat almost exactly, and made it to the hot corner on Élyane Guévremont’s bloop single to right and an error that put them both into scoring position.  Carr sent a laser to right field to score both, although Mexico successfully appealed that the second runner missed third base, nullifying one of the runs.  Canada’s seventh and final run came in their final at bat when Gélinas and Jalbert led off with back-to-back line drive singles, the bases became loaded when Denis’ grounder was mishandled by the third baseman, and Eccles lined a sacrifice fly to left field to score Gélinas.

Forman, 16, notched the win with an impressive 75-pitch outing over five innings, allowing three runs, two earned runs, while giving up just three hits, striking out two, and walking three.  Denis toed the rubber in for the final two innings, throwing shutout ball, allowing one hit, striking out one and walking two.

Defensively, the two most memorable plays were 1B Heather Healey’s stab of a bullet hit down the first base line, and 2B Guévremont’s alert play after catching a pop fly in right field and whipping it to first to double off the runner who was stealing.

“I’m really proud with the way our team has played since we’ve been down here,” said Manager André Lachance. “Our group is dealing with some elements here that they’re not accustomed to with the (hot) weather, different food and schedule changes. For a young athlete that’s not easy so I’m proud of the way they’re handled it.

“We’ve put ourselves in a good position for tomorrow and I expect we’ll put forth a good effort in the semis.”

 

Adam Morissette
Media/PR, Baseball Canada
Work: 613-748-5606
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