{"id":28086,"date":"2015-07-19T15:49:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T22:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=28086"},"modified":"2015-07-19T15:49:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T22:49:39","slug":"canadian-mens-softball-team-golden-again-at-pan-american-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=28086","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Men\u2019s Softball Team GOLDEN Again at Pan American Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Click<\/a>
Click to read original press release.<\/figcaption><\/figure>From Softball Canada<\/a>
\nby Gilles LeBlanc<\/em><\/p>\n

(Ajax, ON) The Canadian Men\u2019s Softball Team continued an impressive few weeks by defeating Venezuela 2-1 to win Gold at the Pan American Games on Saturday. Less than two weeks ago, the Canadian squad won the WBSC Men\u2019s World Softball Championship in Saskatoon, SK, and carried their hot bats and great defence to Ajax, ON to win double gold in their two major international events. The Pan American Games Gold medal also extends Canada\u2019s streak to eight consecutive in Men\u2019s Softball, which was making its return to the Pan American Games after last appearing in 2003 \u2013 with Canada winning all eight Gold medals handed out at the event. To cap it all off, the Men\u2019s National Softball Team earned a pair of Gold medals the year of Softball Canada\u2019s 50th Anniversary after going 12 years without one, the last of which coming at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

The game got off to an interesting start, as Canadian pitcher Sean Cleary<\/strong> (Harbour Main, NL) walked the leadoff batter who was sacrificed over to second and advanced to third on a passed ball. After a fly out to right for the second out, Cleary threw a pitch low and inside that got by catcher Ryan Boland<\/strong> (Goulds, NL) and the runner from third ran half way down the line but stopped thinking the ball had hit the batter\u2019s foot. Boland picked up the ball and tagged the runner who was called out by the umpire, sparking a heated argument from the Venezuelan coaches and runner. After play resumed, both pitchers took over as Erick Urbaneja<\/strong> sat Canada down in order over the first three innings.<\/p>\n

In the top half of the third, Venezuela got a one-out single up the middle and the runner advanced to second on a passed ball and to third when a snap throw to second hit the baserunner, but Cleary got a big strikeout and a lineout to leave a runner stranded at third. The following inning, Mathieu Roy<\/strong> (St-Gervais, QC) led off with a walk but was retired at second on a fielder\u2019s choice. The ball popped out of the shortstop\u2019s glove but the umpire ruled it was on the transfer. Brad Ezekiel (Harbour Main, NL) advanced to second on a passed ball and to third on a ground out followed by an intentional walk by Steve Mullaley<\/strong> (Freshwater, NL) to put runners on the corners, but a ground out to the first baseman kept the game scoreless.<\/p>\n

Venezuela got a one-out walk in the top of the fifth but Cleary struck out the other three batters, and Derek Mayson<\/strong> (North Vancouver, BC) got Canada\u2019s first hit of the game on a great bunt single but was retired on a double play on the very next play. Kevin Schellenberg<\/strong> (Squamish, BC) then hit a solid line-drive single to center, but was caught stealing at second to end the fifth.<\/p>\n

Cleary kept rolling by sitting Venezuela down on a strikeout and two groundouts in the top of the sixth before Canada was finally able to break the deadlock. Roy led off with a walk and immediately scored on a huge two-run homerun to right-center by Ezekie<\/strong>l, sending the sold out crowd into a frenzy. With only one at-bat left to come back, Venezuela got a one-out single with the runner advancing on a ground out to the first baseman, and cut the lead to 2-1 on a single up the middle by Edwin Linares. However, Cleary bounced back with a huge strikeout to end the game and win Canada\u2019s second Gold medal in less than two weeks!<\/p>\n

Box Score: Canada 2 vs. Venezuela 1 <\/a>
\n Cleary was fantastic in the pitcher\u2019s circle for Canada, allowing only one run on three hits and three walks while striking out six batters, none bigger than the last batter of the game. Canada also managed only three hits, with the big two-run homerun by Ezekiel being the difference. Mayson<\/strong> and Schellenberg<\/strong> each singled for Canada in the fifth.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Venezuela earned their spot in the Gold medal game by blanking Argentina 2-0 behind a complete-game shutout by Ramon Jones<\/strong>. Venezuela scored both its runs in the top of the fourth inning on a RBI double by Rafael Flores<\/strong> who then scored on an error. Argentina took the Bronze medal.<\/p>\n

-SC-<\/p>\n

For more information, please contact:<\/p>\n

Gilles LeBlanc
\n Manager – Marketing and Communications
\n Softball Canada
\ngleblanc [at] softball.ca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Softball Canada by Gilles LeBlanc (Ajax, ON) The Canadian Men\u2019s Softball Team continued an impressive few weeks by defeating Venezuela 2-1 to win Gold at the Pan American Games on Saturday. Less than two weeks ago, the Canadian squad won the WBSC Men\u2019s World Softball Championship in Saskatoon, SK, and carried their hot bats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28,9,23],"tags":[126,323,193,329],"class_list":{"0":"post-28086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"category-featured","9":"category-international","10":"category-tournaments","11":"tag-panams2015","12":"tag-panamsoftball","13":"tag-softballcanada","14":"tag-to2015","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28087,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28086\/revisions\/28087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}