SAN JOSE, CUBA – Baseball Canada’s national senior team qualified for a final Olympic Qualifying tournament thanks to a 3-1 win against Nicaragua today at the 2006 COPABE Americas Olympic Qualifier.
The victory against Nicaragua locked up a fourth place finish for Canada at the tournament, allowing Baseball Canada to advance to a wild-card Olympic Qualifying event in Taiwan. A date for the tournament has not yet been established. Cuba and the United States were awarded automatic berths into the 2008 Beijing Olympics by virtue of finishing first and second in the tournament while third place Mexico will also move on to the wild-card tournament.
Mike Saunders (Victoria, B.C.) was 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI to spark Canada’s offence while Canadian starter Chris Begg (Uxbridge, Ont.) threw a gem on the mound to stymie the Nicaraguan hitters.
In an extremely efficient outing to pick up his second win of the tournament, Begg needed only 64 pitches to preserve a 3-1 Canadian lead through 6.1 innings of work. He struck out five while only allowing one walk.
Canada opened the scoring in the fifth inning thanks to an RBI single from Saunders while Sebastien Boucher (Ottawa, Ont.) drove in Canada’s second run of the inning on a fielder’s choice. Saunders doubled to right-centre the next inning to score Jeremy Ware (Guelph, Ont.) to cap off the Canadian scoring.
Nicaragua threatened in the bottom of the sixth. After having already scored one run in the inning, right fielder Ryan Radmanovich (Calgary, Alta.) collected Canada’s fourth timely outfield assist of the tournament, gunning Nicaragua’s Jorge Aurilan down on a close play at the plate to end the inning with two runners left on base. Two Nicaraguan coaches were ejected for arguing the call.
Veterans Mike Kusiewicz (Ottawa, Ont.) and Mike Johnson (Edmonton, Alta.) were solid in relief, combining to allow one hit over the final 2.2 innings of a game where Canadian pitchers needed only 84 pitches to earn a victory. Johnson was credited with the save.
Canada will now move onto the final Olympic Qualifier where eight teams will compete for the three final spots at the Olympics. In that tournament they will face Mexico, two teams from Europe, two teams from Asia as well as the Australian team and the South African team.
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