GOLD COAST, Australia- In a game that nobody seemed to want to win, the Junior National Team pulled out a 5-4 win over the Australian MLB Academy as pre-worlds exhibition play continued.
Both teams committed five errors and both left nine runners on base.
After two scoreless innings, Toby Handley (Whitby, ON) got things going in the third when he drew a two-out walk and proceeded to steal second base. On the play, the ball rolled into shallow centerfield and Handley took off for third sliding safely into the base.
The next pitch got by the Aussie catcher allowing Handley to score the game’s first run.
The Aussies were quick to answer back in the home half of the third when a lead-off walk came around to score on a one-out double that one-hopped the wall in left-centre.
In the fourth, Josh Naylor (Mississauga, ON) lined a single to left field and with two-out, Owen Spiwak (Mississauga, ON) delivered a triple that got between the fielder’s and rolled to the fence in right-centre to easily score Naylor from first.
Starter Ben Onyshko (Winnipeg, MB) sailed through his first four innings of work until the fifth when he fielded a ball and fired it over first base to go for an infield hit and an error.
A double down the right field line scored the runner and after a wild-pitch and throwing error another run came into count and the Aussies took a 3-2 lead.
Onyshko had six strikeouts in five innings of work before giving way to Kurtis Horne (Sooke, BC).
Taking advantage of some erratic pitching, the juniors came back with a run in the sixth when Malik Collymore (Mississauga, ON) moved to third and scored on a pair of wild-pitches.
Collymore had reached second when his slow roller was thrown over first by the pitcher with two-out in the inning.
In the bottom of the inning however, the juniors gave a run right back to the Aussies as a lead-off double scored with two-out after an error.
The see-saw affair continued in the seventh with the junior’s counting for two runs, both coming with two out.
Toby Handley scored on a groundout to second and Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) hit a broken-bat single that fell into centre field that scored Chris Thibideau from second base.
Horne managed a strikeout and a double-play in the seventh after giving up two single, and in the eighth he allowed a two-out walk, but got a fly-out to left to end the game.
Box Score –JNT 5 Australia Academy 4
Notes: 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 tomorrow...Following the announcement, the juniors will play Australia at 12:30pm AEST (10:30pm ET on 08/23)…Live scoring will be available at: www.mlbaap.baseball.com.au... 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.
