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Baseball Canada’s national junior team had a comeback effort fall just short yesterday as they dropped a 3-2 decision to Sancti Spiritus of the Cuban Professional League.

Kyle Orr homered in the fifth inning while Mark Ellis scored on an error in the eighth for Canada, but Sancti Spiritus held on in the ninth for the narrow victory.

Canada’s pitching was solid for the second straight day. After starter Michael Goemans worked the first four innings, giving up 3 runs on 5 hits, Matt Jebb, Mehdi Djebbar and Cameron Gray shutout Cuba the rest of the way while only giving up one hit.

The Cubans took the lead early in the first when a lead-off double and two singles enabled Sancti Spiritus to score twice. The winning run was scored in the fourth inning behind a single, a stolen base, a sacrifice fly and a pass ball.

Orr, Ellis and Jordan Wideman collected Canada’s only hits.

The Canadian juniors then lost their third straight games to the Cuban junior national team today, 7-1.

The Canadians scored their only run in the first when Chase Larsson drew a walk to lead off the inning and was later cashed in by a fielder’s choice by Jonathan Waterbury.

Cuba’s attack came in bunches and extremely efficient once again, scoring four times in the first inning and three more times in the third on only 8 hits.

Carlos Mesa hit a towering two-run homerun for the Cubans in the first inning to jump start his team’s offence. After using the long ball to get ahead, Cuba took advantage of three walks and only one single to score three more to pad their lead in the third inning.

James Paxton struggled as Canada’s starter going 2.1 innings and allowing 6 runs behind 3 hits, 4 walks and 1 wild pitch.  Leslie Williams gave up Cuba’s final run in his 2.1 innings which saw him give up four hits, walk four batters and strike out one.

Mehdi Djebbar, Cory Hall and Sheldon McDonald pitched shutout ball and gave up only one hit over the final 5.1 innings.