EDMONTON – At the conclusion of the World Junior Championship, the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) unveiled the tournament’s award winners and All-Star team and Brett Lawrie (Langley, BC) brought home a lot of hardware. Lawrie was awarded the Top Hitter Award with his .469 average for the tournament. He was also awarded the Most Home Runs Award with three and the Most RBI Award with 16. He was also named the catcher for the World All-Star team. “We played well as a team the whole tournament,” says Lawrie. “It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t achieve what we wanted to coming here, but I’m very proud of the way the team played during the tournament.” Joining Lawrie on the World All-Star team is Michael Crouse (Port Moody, BC) as an outfielder. Crouse hit .312 with two doubles, one triple and five RBI in the tournament and fielded his position exceptionally, committing no errors with 12 putouts.
EDMONTON – In the end, the Junior National Team simply ran out of options and nothing seemed to go their way as they would fall at the hands of Chinese Taipei by a score of 11-4 in the fifth place game at the World Junior Championship. The Canadians were short on pitchers going into this one as all their pitchers would be working on short rest. It started off well for Canada as they would open the scoring in the first inning on a RBI single from Michael Crouse (Port Moody, BC) to score Lionel Morrill (Edmonton, AB) and give Canada the 1-0 lead. That would basically be one of few high points for the Canadians in this matchup. Chinese Taipei would get to Canadian starter François Lafreniere (St. Bruno, QC) in the fourth inning on back-to-back solo home runs from Yu-Hseng Chen and Fu-Lin Kuo. Taipei would add another run in the inning to take a 3-1 lead. Then Taipei would blow it open in fifth inning scoring five runs in the frame on five straight singles and a double to put them ahead 8-1. Canada would start clawing back in the sixth inning on the two-run double from Luke Willson (Lasalle, ON) to bring in Brett Lawrie (Langley, BC) and Crouse and cut the lead to 8-3. But that is as close as the Canadians would get in this game as Taipei would add another run in the sixth and two more in the seventh to put it away. Canada would add one more run in the ninth inning on the RBI double from Ivan Hartle (North Vancouver, BC). “They found so many holes today that there wasn’t much we could do. They hit the ball well,” says Lawrie, who was 3-for-4 in this game. “Hats off to them, they swung the bats well today.” “Sixth place isn’t the result you want. We were down on our pitching and it makes it tough when you don’t have healthy arms,” says JNT Manager Greg Hamilton. “We were in tough today. They swung the bats well and we didn’t have a whole lot of answers, but I don’t want to take it away from them. They swung the bats well and they deserved to win,” Canada finishes the World Junior Championship with a 5-3 record. The margin for error in this type of tournament is very small and unfortunately for the Juniors, a championship was not meant to be this time around. “In the end, we lost a 2-1 game to Australia which could’ve completely changed the complexion of how things finished,” says Hamilton. “If the 2-1 ballgame goes the other way, you never know, but that’s what it is. It’s a small margin in this game from being at the ultimate level of success to being sixth.” The process begins again this coming fall as the Junior National Team will reconvene in Orlando for the Fall Instructional Camp at the Disney Wide World of Sports complex this October. From there a new team will be chosen to complete the quest for gold at the 2010 World Junior Championship, which will be in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
EDMONTON – The Junior National Team brought in six runs in the top of the ninth to come from behind and beat Puerto Rico by a score of 9-6. The Juniors came into the frame trailing 6-3 after Puerto Rico broke a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the eighth inning by scoring three runs. However, Canada would tie it up with one swing of the bat as Carter Morrison (Langley, BC) hit a three-run home run to bring the Juniors back to even. “I was just working the count and got it to 3-1 when he threw me a fastball inside, which I had been waiting for all night and I turned on it,” says Morrison of his home run. Canada would then load the bases for Ivan Hartle (North Vancouver, BC), who would draw the walk to drive in the winning run for the Canadians. Jonathan Gilbert (St-Georges, QC) would hit a RBI single and Brett Lawrie (Langley, BC) would drive in a run on a sacrifice fly to put Canada ahead by three. From there, Mike Monster (Kelowna, BC) went to the mound to close things out and got Jan Vazquez to strikeout for the final out and seal the victory. “These are not easy games when your goals and objectives go out the window the night before,” says JNT Manager Greg Hamilton. “Even though you’re only playing for placement, it does make a difference and it does matter and I’m glad to see we were able to dig deep in the end and win that.” Lost in the big ninth inning by the Canadians was the performance of starting pitcher Evan Grills (Whitby, ON), who would go seven strong innings, allowing three runs on three hits and five walks with seven strikeouts. “I was just trying to throw strikes and get ahead of batters,” says Grills. “I wanted to use my defense so I was a bit surprised by the number of strikeouts tonight.” Puerto Rico opened the scoring in the second inning when a pair of Canadian errors would allow a run to score and give Puerto Rico a 1-0 lead. Canada would immediately respond in the top of the third on a RBI single from Brett Lawrie to drive in James Kottaras (Markham, ON) and tie things up at 1-1. Canada would add two more in the top of the fourth inning on a RBI double from Luke Willson (Lasalle, ON) and a RBI from Kottaras and put the Juniors ahead by two. Puerto Rico would make things interesting by scoring one run in the fifth inning and another in the sixth to tie up the game and setup the late inning dramatics. Next up for the Junior National Team will be Chinese Taipei, who beat Mexico 1-0 earlier in the day. They will face off to see who will finish in fifth place. Game time is at 10:00 am in St. Albert.
EDMONTON – In what was predicted to be an even matchup, the fans in the stands got to see exactly that. However the Junior National Team would get the short end of the stick and fell just short as Australia would get an upset victory over Canada by a score of 2-1 in the quarter-final of the World Junior Championship. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Canadians rallied to load the bases, beginning with Michael Crouse (Port Moody, BC) reaching on an error. Follow that up with a single from Carter Bell (Courtenay, BC) and a walk to Carter Morrison (Langley, BC) and that would bring Luke Willson (Lasalle, ON) to the plate with a chance to win it for Canada. With the count one ball and two strikes on Willson, the pitch from Aussie reliever Jarryd Sullivan seemed to have struck Willson in the shin, which would have brought in the tying run. However the home plate umpire disagreed and Willson would eventually strikeout swinging to end the ballgame. “I told the umpire that the ball hit me, but he said it didn’t,” says Willson. “There not much else you can do after that. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be called out on a questionable call and I ended up swinging over a pitch that dropped down.” It was a tight battle throughout as both starting pitchers would go deep into the game give very little. Stosh Wawrzasek (Langley, BC) got the start on the mound for Canada and went six and a third strong innings, allowing two runs on six hits, one walk and four strikeouts. It was a similar line for Aussie starter Justin Erasmus as he would go seven innings, allowing one run on two hits and two walks with five strikeouts. Australia opened the scoring in the fourth inning, scoring a pair on a single and a sacrifice fly to take the lead 2-0. Canada responded in the sixth inning when James Kottaras (Markham, ON) came in to score on the sacrifice fly from Lionel Morrill (Edmonton, AB) to cut the lead in half. Unfortunately, that is as close as the Juniors would get. “They played a good game against us,” says Brett Lawrie (Langley, BC). “We lost as a team today, there’s no doubt about it. It was their game today and there’s no tomorrow in this tournament, so we just have to keep our heads up high and go after it again tomorrow.” “Sometimes in life you play for pride and that’s what we have to do,” says JNT Manager Greg Hamilton. “We came in here trying to win a medal and we thought we had a legitimate team to do it. We still do, but sometime it doesn’t go your way in a 2-1 game and now we have to go out and finish as high as we can and maintain the respect and pride we have in our program.” The Junior National Team will begin their quest to finish in the fifth spot starting on Saturday, August 2 against Puerto Rico. Game time is at 7:00 pm at John Fry Park.
