Victoria Vidales drove in a pair of runs and Dallas Escobedo tossed a complete game to lead Mexico over Australia, 4-1 which sends Mexico to the Bronze Medal Game on Tuesday and knocks Australia out of the tournament.
In the second inning, Brittany Cervantes singled to left field and Suzannah Brookshire plated her with a triple down the left line. A few pitches later she scored on an opposite field single off the bat of Victoria Vidales to put Mexico in front 2-0.
Vidales collected her second RBI with a double, in a perfectly executed hit-and-run play, allowing pinch runner Tatyana Forbes to score easily from first base. Vidales scored Mexico’s fourth run on a single by Chelsea Gonzalez.
In the bottom of the sixth, Jade Wall hit a massive solo home run to center field to put Australia. But that’s all what Escobedo allowed.
Mexico totalled 11 hits in the game, including multi-hit efforts by Anissa Urtez, Cervantes and Vidales, who produced two of the four runs of her team.
Escobedo pitched a complete game for second consecutive night. After a one-hitter last night against Italy, the Mexican ace allowed 5 hits and 1 run, with 5 strikeouts.
For Australia, the losing pitcher was Kaia Parnaby, who gave up 5 hits and 4 runs in 3.1 innings of work.
For the first time in history, Australia will not be on the podium in an Olympic Games softball competition. They won a silver medal in Athens 2004, and bronze medals in Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008.
With her country out of the Tokyo 2020 tournament, Aussie legend Stacey Porter announced her retirement.
"Arguably the best to ever play the game," Softball Australia tweeted. "We will miss you and can’t thank you enough for what you have done for our game!"
Tomorrow, a new country will win a softball medal in the Olympics, since Canada and Mexico have never finished on the Olympic podium before (Mexico is making their Olympic debut in Tokyo 2020). Tomorrow's bronze medal winner will Australia, China, Japan and USA as the only nations to have medalled in Olympic softball.
