GOLD COAST, Australia-The day did not start very well for the Junior National Team as they dropped a 9-6 decision to Riseisha College in the afternoon before defeating Australia 4-3 this evening in what was perhaps their finest effort thus far of the pre-worlds selection camp exhibition series.
JNT 4 Australia 3
The juniors built a four-run lead through six innings and received a pair of fine pitching performances from JP Stevenson (Hunter River, PE) and Connor Noble (Vancouver, BC) as they picked-up a 4-3 win over Australia.
Chris Thibideau (Dartmouth, NS) kept his hot bat going belting a an opposite field double to right and scoring from second on Jake Lumley’s (Windsor, ON) single to centre in the bottom of the first.
After Lumley swiped second, Josh Naylor (Mississauga, ON) lined a single up the middle to score him and the juniors were out to a quick 2-0 lead.
In the third, Lachlan Fontaine (North Vancouver, BC) belted a double that rolled to the wall in right and after a passed ball, he scored on when Toby Handley (Whitby, ON) beat out a two-out, infield single to short.
Starter JP Stevenson allowed a lead-off double in the top of the first, but came back to retire the next nine batters he faced including three via strikeout.
Connor Noble picked up exactly where Stevenson left off allowing only one hit and one walk through three innings, while striking out five.
The juniors made it 4-0 when Lachlan Fontaine walked and advanced to second, third and home on wild-pitches in the sixth before the Aussies got on the board with a pair of runs in the seventh.
With reliever Nathan Borges (Brooklin, ON) on the mound, a two-out walk came around to score on a wild-pitch and after another walk, a triple scored plated the second run of the inning.
A lead-off double in the eighth followed by an RBI single made things interesting, but Borges was able to get a double-play and strikeout to get out of the inning.
The game was made official after the eighth as the ninth was used to practice the International Baseball Federation’s extra-inning rule.
The juniors had nine hits on the evening with Lachlan Fontaine collecting three of them including a double, while Jake Lumley had a pair of singles.
Riseisha College 9 JNT 6
Riseisha College used a four run fifth inning to break a 3-3 tie and held off a late rally to defeat the Junior National Team 9-6.
The four run inning saw Riseisha benefit from three walks, two errors and a base-hit to score their runs and take a 7-3 lead.
Down 9-3 in the ninth, the junior's rallied with three runs and threatened with two runners on before Gareth Morgan (Toronto, ON) flew-out to centerfield to end the game.
The juniors opened the scoring in the top of the first as Toby Handley (Whitby, ON) led off with a four pitch walk and after stealing second and moving to third on a groundout, he scored when Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) grounded out to third base.
They would add to their lead when Lachlan Fontaine (North Vancouver, BC) walked and Malik Collymore (Mississauga, ON) singled before free passes were issued to Morgan Loftstrom (Kelowna, BC) and Gareth Morgan to bring in the second run of the inning which ended the Riseisha starter’s day.
Riseisha answered back in the home half of the second when a lead-off double came around to count on a single to right field off of JNT starter Colton Wood (Victoria, BC).
In the top of the third, Jake Lumley (Windsor, ON) led-off with a beautiful bunt-single down the third base line and Tyler O’Neill picked up his second RBI of the day when he smacked an opposite-field double off the wall in right-centre.
Blake Weston (Oakville, ON) took over for Wood in the fourth and got into trouble early walking two batters and giving up two singles which allowed Riseisha to tie the score.
Things didn’t get much better for Weston in the fifth as two walks and an error loaded the bases before he walked in the go ahead run.
Weston was removed from the game in favour of Luke Manuel (Surrey, BC) who didn’t get much help from his defence early on as an error at third base brought in two more runs to make the score 6-3.
Later in the frame, a single up the middle brought in the fourth run of the inning before Manuel got out of it on a groundout to second.
After Riseisha added two runs in the seventh, the juniors rallied in the ninth with three runs and had the tying run at the plate, but came up short.
Mitch Bigras (Sarnia, ON) and Toby Handley had back-to-back singles and after a fielder’s choice, Bigras later scored on a fielding error.
Lachlan Fontaine (North Vancouver, BC) singled home Jake Lumley and Chris Thibideau’s (Dartmouth, NS) sac-fly brought in the innings third run.
Tyler O’Neill led the offence with a 2-for-5 day at the plate with a double and three RBI, while Lachlan Fontaine had two singles and drove-in one.
Toby Handley, Jake Lumley and Morgan Lofstrom each picked-up two singles as part of 13 hits on the afternoon for the Junior National Team.
Reliever Sean Ratcliffe (Ajax, ON) struck out three batters in the bottom of the eighth after the first batter of the inning reached on an error.
Box Score – Riseisha College 9 JNT 6
Notes: The juniors will play Australia tomorrow (08/23) at 12:30pm AEST (10:30pm ET on 08/22) where Ben Onyshko (Winnipeg, MB) is expected to start…Live scoring will be available at: www.mlbaap.baseball.com.au... The 20-player Junior National Team roster that will represent Canada at the IBAF 18U World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan August 30-September 8 will be announced on Saturday.
You can follow the Junior National Team during exhibition play and at the IBAF 18U World Cup by visiting Baseball.ca or by following @baseballcanada on Twitter.
