GIJANG, South Korea - Noah Hull (Toronto, ON) drilled a two-run homer in the second inning and Jack Seward (Port Moody, BC) recorded the win on the mound to lead Canada’s Junior National Team to a 9-0 win over Nicaragua at the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-18 Baseball World Cup.
The win improves Canada’s opening round record to 3-1 with one game remaining in Group A play.
“It was a complete game today,” said Head Coach Greg Hamilton. “We had a great start on the mound and our offence really took over the game.”
With Canada leading 1-0 in the second inning, Hull drilled a full count offering over the wall in right field to put Canada up by three and led to a 3-for-4 performance with three RBI.
“Noah’s a great hitter who hasn’t had a lot of luck until this point in time so it’s great to get him going,” added Hamilton.
Dasan Brown (Oakville, ON) and TJ Schofield-Sam (Brampton, ON) each drove in a pair of runs with Brown contributing a two RBI singles while Schofield-Sam had sacrifice flies that plated runs in the first and sixth innings.
Seward fanned nine batters over five and two-thirds innings of work and got some help from his defence including a pretty play on a force out from shortstop Austin Gomm (Mississauga, ON) in the fourth that would have given Nicaragua the bases loaded with just one out.
“(Jack) filled up the strike zone and pitched effectively with the lead,” said Hamilton. “We didn’t have to use a lot of arms after him so in a lot of way it was a tremendous outing for him.”
In the sixth, with two out and the bases loaded and after recording his ninth strikeout of the game, Seward was replaced by reliever Theo Millas (Burnaby, BC) who froze Nicaragua’s Anthony Bassett on a 1-2 breaking ball to end the frame.
Millas worked a scoreless seventh inning before handing things over to Mitch Bratt (Newmarket, ON) who recorded two strikeouts over the final two frames.
Canada will close out opening round play against Australia with the first pitch set for 10PM ET on Tuesday, September 3rd.
Hamilton knows that Australia will be coming out hard.
“They’re going to fight, they’re backs are against the wall,” said Hamilton. “We’ve got to come out tomorrow and play a complete game.”
HOW TO FOLLOW
All 50 games of the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup will be streamed live at: youtube.com/wbsc.
