Great Britain's Stacie Townsend pitches Saturday in what would be her team's final game of the tournament.

4 TEAMS ADVANCE TO WORLD CUP’S FINAL DAY
2005-11-26

The Auburndale (Florida) Maniacs defeated the Davie (Florida) Power Black tonight, 1-0, while the Shamrocks (Fairfax, Virginia) were beating Team FLA (Palm Harbor, Florida), 5-0, setting up a showdown between those two winners tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. in Plant City Stadium on the final day of play at the International Softball Federation’s (ISF) III Jr. Girls’ World Cup (16-and-under). Sunday’s schedule will begin with Chinese Taipei taking on the Winnipeg Lightning (Manitoba, Canada) at 9 a.m. All games are free and open to the public.

At 1 p.m. tomorrow, the loser of the Taipei vs. Lightning game will play the loser of the Maniacs vs. Shamrocks game to determine the Jr. Girls’ World Cup bronze medalist. The winner of the Taipei vs. Lightning game will play the winner of the Maniacs vs. Shamrocks game at 3 p.m. in the gold medal matchup.

Chinese Taipei was the silver medalist at both the II and 1st Jr. Girls’ World Cups (2003 & 2001, respectively). With tonight’s loss that eliminated Team FLA, that team lost the chance to improve on its bronze medal finish at this event two years ago.

On Wednesday evening, the first night of the tournament, Team FLA handed the Shamrocks a 2-0 defeat, which is the only blemish on a record that has seen them win seven straight games since, heading into tomorrow morning. Over that stretch the Shamrocks have outscored their opponents 70-1. Saturday night Dorian Shaw hit a grand slam home run well over the left centerfield fence in the bottom of the fifth, one inning after having scored the eventual game-winning run on a single by Alyson Heon. With the loss, Team FLA finished with a 6-1 record.

On a different field on the Randy L. Larson Softball Fourplex, the Maniacs were defeating the Davie Power Black in dramatic fashion. With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the seventh, Power Black catcher Jessica Abraham went back toward the screen to retrieve a wild pitch as Auburndale’s Brianne Farmer started to break toward home from third base. Davie pitcher Linsey Croft came to cover home plate, giving Farmer pause on the base path, but Abraham’s throw to Croft was wild, allowing Farmer to score for the victory. Four different Maniacs players had two-hit games.

The Team FLA-Shamrocks matchup had been setup when Team FLA defeated the Seminole Warriors (Longwood, Florida), 7-0, and the Shamrocks held off the Diamond Dusters (Pembroke Pines, Florida), 3-1. Team FLA used a balanced offensive attack – scoring runs in three different innings and getting hits from six different players – along with a one-hit, 12-strikeout pitching performance from Kat Gladding, to blank the Warriors. The Shamrocks got three runs in the fifth inning and pitcher Megan Elliott came on in relief in the seventh inning to get her team out of a jam after the Dusters had finally scored a run and had runners on-base.

Tonight’s Davie vs. Auburndale matchup had been setup when Davie pulled off a minor upset, blanking the Xtreme of Georgia (Riverdale), 2-0, while Auburndale was eliminating the Twilight Twisters (Winter Haven, Florida), 9-2. Davie got runs in the first and fourth innings and held the Xtreme to just three hits. Davie had entered the game with an overall won-lost record of 3-3, while Georgia came in at 5-1. The Maniacs scored four runs in the second and five more in the fourth inning while holding the Twisters to three hits. Auburndale’s Kendall Arnold went 3-for-3 at the plate and scored a run to lead the win.

Chinese Taipei advanced to tomorrow’s 9 a.m. game by outlasting the Canadian Northern Ice (Manitoba), 2-1, in eight innings. Their opponent Sunday morning is Winnipeg thanks to the Lightning’s 9-0 win over Great Britain this afternoon.

Chinese Taipei had taken a 1-0 lead over the Ice in the bottom of the second inning when, with two outs, Yin Sha Lo doubled home Yu Lin, who’d singled and stolen second. But, the Ice’s Bre-ann Robertson scored in the fifth to tie the game at 1-1, which is how it stayed until the bottom of the eighth when center fielder Hsuan Yu scored to give Chinese Taipei the win. On an adjacent field, Winnipeg was sending Great Britain home by getting multiple-hit games from five different players, evening the Lightning’s won-lost record at 3-3.

A couple notables from the morning games today:

Christine Roser hit a walk-off home run to left centerfield with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning to lift the Seminole Warriors past the Jacksonville (Florida) Thunderbolts, 5-4. (She finished 3-for-4 with two runs scored.)

Xtreme of Georgia pitcher Heather Lowry struck out eleven batters and Alex Adams was a perfect 3-for-3 at the plate in a 5-1 win over the Suncoast Outlaws (Brooksville, Florida).