Softball: Aggressive Black Sox thrash US

By JULIE ASH

The Black Sox moved closer to a third straight world championship last night when they shut out the fancied United States 9-0.

The Americans felt the full brunt of the Black Sox powerful batters, who possibly had a point to prove after their disappointing showing 24 hours earlier when they lost to Canada.

"It is not so much about it being sweet," Black Sox coach Don Tricker said "It is about being a win.

"We have got two more days in this tournament with this team and then on Sunday afternoon the team disband and will never be together again.

"Beating America today was the dream result, regardless of the score. Tomorrow there is a different dream."

Unbeaten in the round-robin competition, the Americans changed pitchers four times in an attempt to stop the New Zealanders, who had no problems driving the ball into the gaps in the field.

"Our guys continued to be aggressive," Tricker said. "They were composed and they hit the ball hard. We proved today that we are not necessarily a one-dimensional side who rely on home runs ... we scored a bunch of runs without anyone hitting the ball out of the park.

"What we have worked on all the way through is hitting the ball hard and hitting it on the line. If you hit the ball hard enough then often good things happen."

Jim Wana was the man on the mound for New Zealand for the entire match and the Wellingtonian did a fine job in keeping the Americans scoreless.

Wana faced 19 batters, scored two strikeouts and gave away just two hits.

"Jim threw well - he threw a shutout - but he knows he can do an awful lot better than he did today," Tricker said.

"But we said all the way along we have got a pitching staff and we are not going to rely on Jim. We'll look at who we are playing and who we believe is going to match up with the opposition before we make any calls on who has got the ball."

US coach Peter Turner admitted his team came into the match with high expectations.

"We are playing about as well as we could have," Turner said.

"But they deserved to win, we deserved to lose."

Turner said he was impressed with the New Zealand line-up and hoped to meet them again ... "because I didn't think we showed what we could (do), and that is disappointing".

"I think our pitching is good enough to stop them, but we had some plays on we didn't execute and that put them in position to have a bigger inning that they should of had."

In front of at least 5000 spectators at Christchurch's Smokefree BallPark, it was obvious early on that the Black Sox had brought their A game to the ground.

And the Americans knew it. Instead of facing the haka the US positioned themselves as far away from the diamond as the fence would permit.

After a scoreless first inning, hits by Nathan Nukunuku, Stacy McLean, Dion Nukunuku, Mark Sorenson and Donny Hale secured New Zealand six runs at the bottom of the second.

The hosts added to their tally in the bottom of the third with a run to Nathan Nukunuku which came off a McLean drive down right field.

Runs to McLean and Jarrad Martin ended New Zealand's impressive haul at 9-0.

America's New Zealand-born pitcher Michael White, a former Black Sox, did not feature until the bottom of the third where in one inning he faced seven batters, scored two strikeouts and gave away two hits.

New Zealand now face Canada today, the winners advancing to Sunday's final.

In other matches today, the US face Samoa and Australia play Japan, with the winners playing each other.

Samoa beat the Czech Republic 5-0 yesterday after an outstanding performance from pitcher Heine Shannon, who faced 17 batters, scored 10 strikeouts and gave away just two hits.

That knocked the Czech Republic out of the tournament. Because they finished fourth in their pool, Samoa only have one life which means they must keep winning to stay in the tournament.

Argentina were also eliminated yesterday, being outplayed by Australia 7-0.

Tournament draw and results

Tournament statistics

Squad lists