Canada beats Netherlands, gets matchup with Japan
By Gary Kingston
The tears streaming down the cheeks of Lauren Bay Regula told the story. She was a winner. And she was going to be playing for a medal at a Women’s World Softball Championships on home soil.
It was the reason why the soon-to-be 35-year-old mother of three came back to the sport after a seven year absence.
“I’m excited, it doesn’t look like I am, but I am,” said the heat-throwing lefthander from Trail, B.C., as she wiped her eyes and tried to collect herself after pitching Canada to a 9-2 win over the Netherlands at Softball City before a crowd of 3,250 on Saturday night.
“No, no, no, I can’t put it into words. Just more excited than you can imagine.”
The victory, all but assured when veteran shortstop Jenn Salling slammed a three-run home run in the bottom of the fourth to put Canada up 8-2, set up a semifinal matchup today (1 p.m.), with two-time reigning champion Japan, which fell 4-3 earlier in the day to the U.S.
The winner will face the Americans at 6 p.m. for the gold.
Bay Regula threw four innings, striking out five and giving up just three hits, one of them a two-run home run by red-hot Netherlands shortstop Britt Vonk, who may just be the most outstanding player at the tournament.
The strong-armed Salling hasn’t been far behind Vonk with some timely hits and rock-solid defence.
“These two events (worlds and Pan Am Games gold in Toronto in 2015) are the reason why I came back to play for Canada,” said Salling, who was away from the program for two years while concentrating on pro ball. “It’s like the coolest thing ever. Unreal.
“It’s like it’s supposed to happen. A crazy feeling. Cool.”
Canada will be in tough today against the Japanese. But both Bay Regula and Salling noted that the squad will lean heavily on what they learned playing double-headers for 10 days against a Japanese B team in Japan in June.
“They’re always tough to beat, but we’re very well prepared,” said Salling. “We got to see Japanese softball for 10 days straight. We definitely know what we’re getting ourselves into, but I think we’re prepared for it.”
U.S. 4 JAPAN 3
You normally have to play smart, error-free softball to beat Japan. The U.S. struggled with both concepts Saturday, but still managed to squeeze out that 4-3 victory to advance directly to Sunday’s final.
The Americans ran into an out at home when second baseman Kelsey Stewart foolishly tried to test the arm of Japanese right fielder Misato Kawano. And the Americans committed three errors in the infield.
But they did pound out 11 hits, scoring twice in each of the third and fifth innings.
“Timely hitting,” said U.S. coach Ken Eriksen of how the U.S. prevailed. “And we had a gutsy kid on the mound.”
Ally Carda, a UCLA grad, went the distance except for one batter, coming out in the bottom of the seventh to allow lefthander Delanie Gourley to strike out Nozomo Nagasaki before returning to induce Haruna Sakamoto into a game-ending pop up.
Eriksen said Stewart and shortstop Delaney Spaulding who made errors that led to a Japanese run in the fourth inning quickly erased the miscues from their minds.
“They didn’t put their head between their tail. Stewart comes up with a really good ground ball play to get out of a big inning with runners on base and Delaney made a couple of nice plays. We all picked each other up and we all looked at each and said ‘I got you.”
The U.S. did suffer a potentially devastating blow, however, when slugger Amanda Chidester was hit on the hand by a Yamato Fujita pitch in the top of the third and had to exit the game. She was replaced by Ali Aguilar, who doubled to centre field in the fifth to drive in Valerie Arioto, who had doubled to right field just before her.
Aguilar eventually scored what turned out to be the winning run on an RBI single by Kelly Cooper off the glove of Japanese first baseman Natsuko Sugama.