ORLANDO – The Junior National Team could not stop the bleeding as Seminole Community College took advantage of every chance they had to come up with a 10-3 win over the Juniors at the Fall Instructional League Camp.
The Canadians were on Seminole’s heels until the fourth inning when the Raiders gradually put this game out of reach.
With one out and a runner on first in the first inning for Seminole, they would load the bases on an error and a hit batsman. After getting the second out of the inning, Anthony Boix doubled against Paul Schaak (Winkler, MB) to clear the bases and give Seminole an early 3-0 lead.
Canada would respond in the second inning when a single would drive in Justin Atkinson (Surrey, BC) and Donovan Latour (Barrie, ON) to cut the lead to one.
But Seminole would regain their three-run lead in the third inning when they scored two runs on three hits against Mike Ellis (Surrey, BC) and make it 5-2.
The Canadians again cut into the lead in the bottom half of the third when Larry Balkwill (Chatham, ON) hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Tanner Nivins (Kitchener, ON) as Canada now trailed 5-3.
That would be as close as they would get as Seminole went on to score one run in each of the next five innings to solidify the win.
Paul Schaak, who started on the mound for the Canadians, gave up the first three runs of the game, however only one was earned as he would throw two innings, allowing two hits and two walks with one strikeout.
Steve McKinnon (Duncan, BC) had a strong outing, allowing two runs, one earned, on two hits, while striking out two in two innings of work. Evan Zerff (Regina, SK) threw his second shutout inning in as many days, pitching the ninth inning and retiring the side in order.
On offence, Alexandre Béland (Trois-Rivières, QC) led the way, stroking two of Canada's four hits in the game, going 2-for-3. Larry Balkwill went 1-for-3 with an RBI and Wes Darvill (Langley, BC) went 1-for-4 to round out the Canadian offence.
Next up for the Junior National Team at the Fall Instructional League camp is a matchup with the Washington Nationals on Monday, October 6 at 1 pm.
