World No. 2 Japan secured seventh spot at the WBSC Men’s Softball World Cup in a 10-inning thriller against the Czech Republic, ranked fifth in the world. The silver medallists from the last edition in 2019 managed to claim the win 5-4 when Seii Kuroiwa took advantage of a Czech Republic miss field to score in the third extra inning.
But the game will be remembered for plenty of outstanding plays, especially defensively when the game went into lockdown mode in the tiebreaker.
The Czech Republic dominated offensively recording two home runs and 11 total bases compared to Japan’s nine. They started the game in the best possible fashion with George Harris homering to centre field to score Marek Maly at the top of the second inning.
Japan replied in the bottom of the third before leading 3-2 in the fourth with two more runs. Martin Magula scored in the fifth to tie the game up before Vojtech Buchner homered in the top of the sixth to give the Czech Republic a 4-3 lead.
Hiroshi Sakata singled up the middle to score Yuya Yamawaki in the bottom of the sixth to tie up the game again at 4-4. The scored stayed that way until Seii Kuroiwa finally split the difference and sprinted from second base to take advantage of the Czech Republic’s misfortune.
Japan mixed their pitching staff with Hikaru Matsuda recording the win giving up one hit and recording 37 strikes in four innings pitched. Jakub Osicka collected the loss pitching the complete game, including an impressive 18 strikeouts.
Silver medallists from 2019, Japan’s seventh place finish is the third time they’ve recorded such a finish but the first time since 1980. The other being in the first edition in 1966.
Czech Republic finished eighth, same position as 2019.
