Seoul, Korea- Ryan Kellogg (Whitby, ON) tossed 8 2/3 shutout innings, Nathan DeSouza (Milton, ON) came up with an RBI single in the top of the tenth and Dayton Dawe (London, ON) shut the door in the bottom of the tenth as Canada blanked the United States 1-0 in ten innings.
The win puts Canada’s record at 2-1 as the second round is underway at the IBAF 18U World Baseball Championships.
“It was a great game and I’m real proud of the guys for competing the way they did today,” said Manager Greg Hamilton. “Other than some base running miscues I thought we were outstanding in all facets of the game.”
Canada began the top of the tenth with runners on first and second base due to the international tie-break rules. Jacob Robson (Windsor, ON) stepped to the plate and delivered a sac-bunt to advance the runners and the US decided to put Kyle Hann (Oakville, ON) on first base to load the bases for DeSouza.
In an eight pitch at-bat where he fouled of six pitches, DeSouza came through with a single through the left side which scored Chris Shaw (Winnipeg, MB) from third base with the game’s first run.
“I was just trying to make contact and put the ball in play,” said DeSouza. “I got a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it.”
“That was a great at-bat by Nathan,” added Hamilton. “Their guy was going slider and a fastball off of it with Nathan in a two strike count. For him to stay with it and shoot that ball to left field was a tremendous job.”
Dayton Dawe, who had come in with two out in the ninth inning in relief of starter Ryan Kellogg, came back out for the tenth and faced a situation of runners on first and second with nobody out.
The first batter tried a fake-bunt, slap hit on two occasions before grounding into a silky smooth turned 4-6-3 double play by Kyle Hann and Mitchell Triolo (Scarborough, ON). Dawe then got the final US batter to fly-out to Gareth Morgan (Toronto, ON) in right field to end the game.
The victory would not have been possible without the efforts of starter Ryan Kellogg who threw 115 pitches and 8 2/3 shutout innings to keep the US off the scoreboard.
“Ryan likes big games, he has big game stuff, big game composure and he showed that today,” explained Hamilton. “You want to get to a game like this and have someone like Ryan available to pitch.”
Kellogg only allowed two hits and a walk, while striking out five batters.
“Tonight was probably the longest and best game I have ever pitched,” he said of his performance. “The biggest key for me was keeping their hitters off-balance.”
Kellogg was particularly impressive in getting out of a jam in the seventh where he allowed a walk, balked and hit a batter before a getting a ground ball out to end the inning.
“Fatigue set in a little bit, but the adrenaline was going and I fought my way through it,” he said.
Canada also had their opportunities to score, but some base running mistakes prevented them from taking advantage of having runners on base in such a tight ballgame.
“We had opportunities to score and didn’t and sometimes the other team gets chances and you end up letting a game go,” said Hamilton. “We faced some adversity, but the guys didn’t let it affect them.”
Kyle Hann did his part to contribute as he got on base in all five plate appearances he had, including a double in the third.
Canada faces a quick turnaround as they will take-on a Colombia squad tomorrow morning that upset Japan earlier today.
The game will be Canada’s third in a little over twenty-four hours.
“We can enjoy this win tonight, but we have to forget about it tomorrow because we need to win,” said Hamilton. “You want to use the momentum of tonight and carry it into tomorrow, but you can’t rest on the fact that you beat a good club tonight because things could change in a hurry.”
Notes
-The game against Colombia will take place at Mokdong Stadium with the first pitch coming at 10am local time (9pm ET).
-You can follow all tournament games LIVE on Game Tracker by clicking on the link below:
http://www.ibaf.org/en/competition/53f63b49-49b3-437f-9f81-dcc5f0ab06a0/results
-An updated tournament schedule with all round two games, rosters, stats and standings are also available at the above link.
-The Korean Baseball Federation also has created a tournament website which can be found at this link:
http://www.worldbaseball2012.kr/
-And for news, notes and updates directly from Seoul, please follow Baseball Canada on Twitter:
