Davies and Evans hit homers in New Zealand 9-3 victory over Venezuela

Huw Davies and Brock Evans hit homers on Sunday in New Zealand’s 9-3 win over Venezuela in Day 2 of the WBSC U-23 Men’s Softball World Cup. The team from Oceania took a commanding advantage in the first three innings of the game, a difference that proved enough to clinch their second win of the tournament.

Venezuela starter Diomar Salas showed some control issues at the start of the game, where New Zealand took advantage of their opponents' situation to score four runs. Salas issued three walks and allowed a hit to be responsible for the first four runs of the contest.

In the second frame, Davies sent an upstairs pitch deep into the left field bleachers for a two-run homer. One inning later, Evans knocked in a run with a double to left field to make it 7-0.

In the bottom of the fifth, down to the last out, Venezuela reacted with a two-run triple by Yeferson Colmenarez to stay in the game. Colmenarez then scored Venezuela's third run on a grounder to shortstop that had a bad bounce, allowing Angel Adames reaching first base.

In the top of the seventh, Evans launched an absolute bomb over the center field fence to extend the lead again.

The winner of the game was Taine Slaughter, who pitched four innings of no-hit ball. He allowed two hits and three runs, all of them in the fifth frame. Floyd Nola tossed two perfect innings to close the game.