|
The International Softball Federation' s (ISF) XI Women' s World Championship heads into its second-last day, with four games on Monday setting the stage for Tuesday' s medal game participants.
The playoffs continue starting with Australia taking on Canada at 10:30 a.m. Canada comes in with an overall won-lost record of 6-2 while the Aussies are now 5-3. A win by Canada could suggest a possible changing of the guard in terms of world softball powers, what with Australia being a three-time Olympic Softball medalist and Canada not having medaled in the Olympics and only had a top three finish once (silver, 1978) at the world championship. The Canadians have been on the rise and this is their chance to finally show they' re ready to contend. A few chinks in the Australian armor had started to show in July when they finished fourth at the six-team II World Cup of Softball.
Australia can' t be pleased with having gone from tied 2-2 with Team USA on Sunday to losing 11-2 and going through three pitchers in the process. The loser of this game will be eliminated from the tournament. Quite a shock for the team from "down under" if that' s them.
At 13:30, China will take on Italy. This will be the first playoff game that brings two teams back together that competed in one of the round robin Pools. China and Italy were in Pool A and faced each other on Day 2, with the host team winning, 3-1. Italy had actually taken a quick 1-0 lead in that game but China scored three times in the top of the fourth inning to go on to victory. The Italians only had one hit that day and committed three errors. Those types of numbers wonĄŻt cut it in the playoffs, but China needs to also start improving on their run production if they' re to seriously challenge for the gold medal. The Chinese have scored more than three runs in a game in only three of their eight outings so far. At 4-4 Italy has the same record as that which they finished with at the last Women' s World Championship (2002). Can they take the next step?
Tomorrow afternoon (16:00 p.m. local time), someone will lose their first game of the event when 8-0 Japan takes on 8-0 USA. The two teams have had more than their share of big games together. Most notably, they were the gold medal game participants at both the 2000 Olympics and the X ISF WomenĄŻs World Championship, with Team USA winning both times. More recently, Japan won the 1st World Cup of Softball and the Japan Cup in 2005, although the Americans won this year' s World Cup of Softball, with Japan having been the opponent.
The early predictions for starting pitchers would be Cat Osterman for the U.S. and Yukiko Ueno for Japan, but since both pitched on Sunday that could certainly change.
The U.S.-Japan winner will advance straight to Tuesday' s gold medal game while the loser will have to play the game before that if they' re to stand a chance at a rematch.
Monday night at 18:30 the winner of the Australia-Canada game will play the winner of the China-Italy game.
Issued by: News Service, Organizing Committee
|
