By Jeff D'Andrea

Australians crowned world junior champions

Jul 15, 2018 | 7:28 PM

From his memory, Australian Layton Reid has only ever pitched one no-hitter in his softball career.

He sure chose the absolute perfect time to do it as Reid no-no’d Japan in the XII WBSC Junior Men’s Softball World Championship Saturday 6-1.

Reid struck out 14 batters in the game. The only Japanese run came in the bottom of the first inning when Wataru Seki scored on a wild pitch. After that, Reid settled down and was a dominant force in the game.

“It’s amazing. The feeling is just incredible. There’s nothing that you can do to top this,” Reid said. “It took a little bit, maybe one or two innings but my mind was there. My teammates were there with me.”

Reid was propped up with some hot bats as well. Shortstop Jeremy Waters crushed a two-run home run in the top of the fourth inning, as the Australians started to pull away with the game.

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“Words can’t explain it. I didn’t even know it was going out. I ran to two and it happened … it happened,” Waters said. “Nothing can top this, this is the… I was going to swear then,” Waters added, while successfully preventing a curse to slip out. “This is the best feeling I’ve ever had playing softball in my life. Being world champs, there’s nothing like it.”

Third baseman Ryan King had the other home run for Australia. He ended the game with two hits, two runs scored and a run batted in.

Japan 5 New Zealand 3

Japan got to the gold medal game by beating Team New Zealand 5-3 in the noon game. The meant New Zealand was awarded the bronze medal.

Japan scored four runs in the third inning, which ended up being enough to win the game.

Shoki Matsuo started the big inning for Japan with an RBI triple and scored on the very next pitch which was wild. Later in the inning, Hiroki Chikamori doubled to score two more runs.

Hiroshi Sakata hit a home run in Japan’s first at-bat of the game.

‘When are you going to bid again?’

Tournament co-chair Derek Smith had nothing but good things to report.

He said broke the attendance record on Tuesday with the much anticipated Canada-New Zealand matchup. The tournament organizers had to add some bleachers in the outfield at Rotary Field to keep up with the seating demand.

Smith said that even before the tournament was complete, the WBSC was already curious as to when they’d be able to come back.

“Just after the first few days, they were already tapping the shoulders and asking ‘when are you going to bid again?’” Smith said. “We’re going to take some time and think about it. We’ll look back at what we did here and I’m sure in the future, we’ll put some kind of a committee together to think about the next event.”

Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW