Youth Park/Taipei City. In the lone quarterfinal game at Youth Park on Friday afternoon the United States defeated Brazil 2-0 to reach the semi-finals at the II 12U Baseball World Cup. Runs in the second and the fifth as well as a flawless performance by the defense lifted the team of head coach Dave Webb to the victory.
The US squad has more troubles to score against Brazil than expected before the game. Brazil’s hurler Eric Taniguchi excelled on the mound, allowing just two runs (1 ER) on six hits. However these two runs were enough for the Americans. Joseph Naranjo used a throwing error by the Brazilian catcher to score the first run in the second. Colton Olasin took advantage of one of the few mistakes of Taniguchi and homered to left field leading off the bottom of the fifth.
This was all the US American pitching staff needed. Andrew Pintar got the starting nod. He gave up just two hits and two walks through five scoreless innings to pick up the win. Anthony Hall replaced him in the sixth, but after a fly out he ran into trouble walking the next two batters. Their coaching staff didn’t want to take any chance and brought in Justin Campbell. The tall right-hander closed it out with a pair of strikeouts.
Team USA now will face Japan in the semi-finals, which edged out Panama in the quarterfinals. Brazil is entering the classification round.
