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(Story by Marco Stoovelaar) USA captures Under-19 world-title with comeback-win Nederlands IRVINE, California (USA) - The USA has prolonged its title as World Champion in the Under-19 category. In a thrilling Final on Saturday-afternoon (August 17), the USA and Japan needed an extra inning to decide the outcome of the 13th WBSC Under-19 Women's Softball World Cup. In the top of the eighth, Japan rallied for three runs, but in the bottom of the inning, the USA answered with four runs to win its third consecutive title! The Netherlands Under-19 Softball Team closed its tournament on Thursday with an 8-2 win against South Africa. For the Orange Team, this was its third consecutive victory in the Placement Pool for 13th through 16th place. It also was the team's last game of the event and with that, it finished in 13th place. Japan was the first to reach the Final when it won twice in the Super Round on Wednesday. On Thursday, Japan met the USA and suffered its first loss. The USA won 1-0 and scored the lone run in the first inning on an obstruction call. With this win, the USA became the second finalist. Earlier on Saturday, Canada won the Bronze Medal by winning 5-4 against Australia. For Canada, this was its first-ever medal. Two years ago, Canada finished in fourth place. For the USA, which remained unbeaten and won ten games, this was its third consecutive World-title and seventh overall. It was the third consecutive time that the event was held in the USA, following Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (2015) and Clearwater, Florida (2017). It also was third time in a row that Japan finished in second place. Japan had won the title five times, the last in 2013. Puerto Rico had finished in third place on the previous two editions, but this time, the team ended in sixth place. The first Junior Women's Softball World Championship was organized in 1981 in Edmonton (Canada). Since this year, the event has been renamed in Under-19 Women's Softball World Cup. The next edition will be organized next year, as it will be moved to the even years then. It will remain to be organized every two years. (August 17) Final Standings 1. USA, 2. Japan, 3. Canada, 4. Australia, 5. Chinese Taipei, 6. Puerto Rico, 7. Mexico, 8. China, 9. New Zealand, 10. Czech Republic, 11. Italy, 12. Brazil, 13. Netherlands, 14. Ireland, 15. South Africa, 16. Botswana.

The Final between Japan and the USA was a pitching duel between Miu Goto and Megan Faraimo. During the tournament, the USA Team dominated, but in the Final, it was Japan that played a great game and was two outs away from the title. Miu Goto, who went the distance, retired the side in the first inning. She gave a lead-off single in the second at bat, but two force outs followed. In the third inning, the righthander gave up a 2-out single to Maelynn Wallace, but she was caught stealing. After being retired in order again in the fourth, the USA got its first runner in scoring position in the fifth. Jayda Coleman led off with a single, then moved to second base with one out when an error was made on a grounder by Jadelyn Allchin-Curran. A double play ended the at bat. It was the lone time that an American runner got into scoring positon. In the seventh, Goto walked a batter with one out, but closed with two strikeouts. Japan got its first runner in the top of the first inning off of Megan Faraimo. She began with two strikeouts, but then gave up a single to Haruka Sumitani, but her temporary runner was caught stealing. Faraimo, who struckout nine batters, retired the side from the second inning on. After having retired 13 batters in a row, the righthander gave up an one-out single to Miu Goto in the sixth. With an 0-1 count on batter Ikue Funasaka, Goto (who was the pitcher) was inserted as pinch-hitter. After reaching first base, Funasaka re-entered as pinch-runner. Next batter Yui Nakagawa fouled off several pitches, but the last one was annulled, as Funasaka was ruled out for leaving first base too early. Moments later, Nakagawa struckout to end the inning. In the top of the seventh, Faraimo struckout the first two batters, then gave up a single to Haruka Sumitani, but a flyout ended the at bat. And so, Japan had been unable to get into scoring position in the regular seven innings. With a scoreless tie, the game went into extra innings and then Japan struck in the top of the eighth. With Chiharu Shiraishi on second base a the tie-break runner, a bunt-attempt ended in a catch. But Shiraishi then scored the first run of the game when Shuri Kasahara hit a double into deep left-centerfield. On the next pitch, Mahiro Takahashi delivered a runscoring single through the leftside of the infield to make it a 2-0 score. After a flyout accounted for the second out, it was clear that the American defense was under pressure, as two errors were made. A hard grounder by pinch-hitter Sakura Fukushige ended in the first error. Takahashi advanced to third base and scored when a high throw from the outfield towards the plate led to another error. It also led to a pitching change, as Montana Fouts took over, while a new catcher also was inserted. In the meantime, Yui Nakagawa was inserted as pinch-runner for Fukushige. She advanced to third base on a single by Rino Setoguchi, but the American defense had some luck, as Nakagawa overran the base and was tagged out to end the inning. But Japan appeared to have a comfortable 3-0 lead. However, the USA turned the game around in its eighth at bat. Tie-break runner Bailey Dowling moved from second to third base on a single by Jadelyn Allchin-Curran, but she was unable to score on a following flyout into rightfield. Hereafter, Frankie Hammoude entered the game as pinch-hitter and drilled the ball into deep leftfield for a 3-run line drive homerun! This was only her second basehit in the event. Her first hit was a double against Botswana on Sunday. A following pop-up was caught by pitcher Miu Goto. The Japan defense then had some tough breaks, which led to the deciding run. Next batter Charla Echols then hit the ball into deep centerfield for an apparent homerun. However, centerfielder Chiharu Shiraishi sprinted to the fence, leaped up, made a great catch of the ball over the fence (her glove was above it) and then crashed into it. Because of the collission with the fence, the ball jumped back onto the field out of Shiraishi's glove to keep it into play. Echols ended up on third base with a triple. Next batter Jasmine Freed then hit a hard grounder towards short stop Ako Imamura, who appeared to have a play to make the final out of the at bat to send the game into the ninth inning. However, Imamura also had some tough luck, as the ball jumped up just in front of her for a bad-hop, walk-off single that enable Echols to score the winning run.

USA - Japan 4-3 (8 inn.) R H E Japan 000 000 03 - 3 6 1 USA 000 000 04 - 4 7 2 (two outs when the winning run was scored in the eighth inning) pitcher Japan inn. SO BB H R ER Miu Goto, L (2-2) 7.2 4 1 7 4 3 pitchers USA inn. SO BB H R ER Megan Faraimo 7.2 9 - 5 3 1 Montana Fouts, W (4-0) 0.1 - - 1 - - Homerun: USA: Frankie Hammoude (1)(8th,3-run,1 out,off Goto). Umpires: HP-Jana McCaskill (Great Britain), 1B-Ed Otterman (Canada), 2B-Marni Bodnarchuk (Canada), 3B-Tao Cheng (China). Clock Operator-Patrick Reus (Netherlands). Official Scorers-Beatriz Morales (Spain), Fausto Nardi (Italy), Gabrielle Hardinger (Austria). Technical Commissioners-Gary Skjerven (Canada), Jorge Roa (Colombia), Anna Battigelli (Italy), Roberto Perez (Canada), Irene Michielan (Italy). Starting Time-2:00 PM. Time Played-1:53 hrs. Site-Softball Stadium, Bill Barber Park, Irvine, California (USA). Game Notes: Final of 13th WBSC U-19 Women's Softball World Cup.

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