Black Sox down Australia 3-0

A dominating performance on the mound from Marty Grant and strong hitting by Rhys Casley saw New Zealand to a 3-0 win over Australia in the Pacific Cup men's softball tournament at Rotorua today.

The Black Sox remained unbeaten in the tournament at Rotorua International Stadium as Australia had no answer to the dominance of Grant.

He tied the visiting side's batters in knots with pace and movement of the ball, facing 26 batters and giving up just four hits while taking ten strikeouts.

The Wellington-based pitcher also did well fielding off his own pitching, making three assists in the game.

Another Black Sox player to stand out was Hutt Valley outfielder Casley, who made the game safe for New Zealand in the bottom of the sixth inning with a big home run over the left field fence with one runner on base.

The Black Sox scored their first run of the game in the top of the second inning when Patrick Shannon scored on a double from Brad Rona.

Victory over Australia came on the back of a win earlier today over Japan 8-3 when the Black Sox showed their ability to fight back as they came from 1-3 down to score seven runs in the third inning and take out the game.

New Zealand's busy day was still to include matches this evening against the All Stars and Samoa.

There were some other topsy-turvy results today, with Australia beating the All Stars 8-3 following a tiebreaker but then going down 3-4 to Japan, also in a tiebreaker.

Samoa beat Japan 4-0 but then went down 0-1 to the All Stars.

Day three results:

New Zealand 8 Japan 3, Australia 8 All Stars 3 (tie breaker), Samoa 4 Japan 0, Japan 4 Australia 3 (tie breaker), All Stars 1 Samoa 0, New Zealand 3 Australia 0.

- NZPA