By Bob Fromer
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Clearwater, Florida, USA: 27 July – Mexican pitcher Yeraldin Carrion employed excellent control and a devastating drop and drop curve to throw a no-hitter at the GB Under-19 Women this afternoon in the last game of first round pool play for both teams at the WBSC Junior World Championship.
Mexico won the game by a score of 4-0.
The result means that GB has finished fourth in a very tough Pool D, behind Canada, China and Mexico, and ahead of Ireland (who celebrated their first win today over Korea) and the Koreans.
Canada and China will go forward to the Championship Double Page Playoff that starts tomorrow (Friday), while Mexico and GB will start on a Placing Double Page Playoff that will decide places 9-16 in the final tournament standings.
GB will play the Netherlands at 1.30 pm on Friday Florida time (6.30 pm in the UK), and if they lose, their tournament will be over.
Win, and they will play again on Saturday against the loser of tomorrow’s game between the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. To keep playing, GB will need to keep winning, but a ninth-place finish – which would be a gain of four places over their finish at the last Junior World Championship in 2015 – is still possible.
Even start​
The only GB baserunner that Yeraldin Carrion allowed in this afternoon’s game came on a walk to catcher Olivia Lee in the top of the fifth inning, and 15 GB hitters went down via strikeouts. Only one ball was hit to the outfield – a fly ball to left field by Alana Snow in the top of the seventh inning.
Carrion does not throw exceptionally hard, but she hit her spots consistently and GB hitters never adjusted to the break on her drop ball.
GB starter Georgina Corrick matched Carrion for the first three innings, retiring nine of the first 10 Mexican batters without allowing a hit, helped by a fine sliding catch by Alana Snow in centre field to end the Mexican third inning.
The one exception was clean-up hitter Eliyah Flores, who led off the bottom of the second inning and got round to third base with no one out when her fly ball was misplayed in the outfield. But Georgina kept her at third, getting the next three Mexican hitters on a strikeout, a pop fly and a groundout.
Bad inning
The game was settled, however, in the bottom of the fourth inning when a lead-off walk, two ground ball hits through the infield and two GB errors allowed the Mexicans to score three runs, more than enough for Yeraldin Carrion to work with.
It was another one of those innings – there have been two or three of them in the tournament – when the GB defense panicked a little bit, especially against pressure from bunts and quick baserunners, and some poor decisions were made that allowed the Mexicans extra bases and more opportunities to score.
Kyra Watson came in to pitch for GB in the bottom of the fifth inning, and the Mexicans scored one more run in that inning on a bunt single, an error, a sacrifice bunt and a wild pitch.
But Kyra did a good job in relief, getting out of that inning and then holding Mexico scoreless in the sixth, helped out by couple of excellent plays featuring Lauren King at third base and Andrea Johnson digging out throws at first.
However, the GB offense just wasn’t there today, and Head Coach Rachael Watkeys made a number of other substitutions over the last two innings.
GB had no chance of making the Championship playoffs before this game, and were always going to wind up in the group playing off for places 9-16. The loss to Mexico means that one more loss will eliminate GB from the tournament (Mexico can lose one game and still keep playing). But the opportunity for a promising end to the competition is still there for the Great Britain Under-19 Women.
Elsewhere….
Here are the final first-round pool standings at the Junior Women's World Championship. The top two teams in each pool will play a Championship Double Page Playoff to decide the medals and places 1-8. The third and fourth place teams from each pool will play a Placement Double Page Playoff to decide places 9-16. Teams finishing fifth, sixth and seventh from each pool will compete in a single-elimination format to decide places 17-26.
POOL A
USA (6-0)
Chinese Taipei (5-1)
Philippines (4-2)
Italy (3-3)
Guatemala (2-4)
South Africa (1-5)
Turkey (0-6)
POOL B
Japan (6-0)
Australia (5-1)
Brazil (4-2)
Netherlands (3-3)
Peru (2-4)
Bahamas (1-5)
Israel (0-6)
POOL C
Puerto Rico (5-0)
Czech Republic (4-1)
Dominican Republic (3-2)
New Zealand (2-3)
Argentina (1-4)
India (0-5)
POOL D
Canada (5-0)
China (3-2)
Mexico (3-2)
Great Britain (2-3)
Ireland (1-4)
Korea (1-4)
China finish second in this pool by virtue of their win over Mexico on Tuesday.
Photos by Simon Mortimer