What Team USA is at the moment landed it in some trouble through five-plus innings of Friday’s game against Australia. Young, unsteady and perhaps even a little unsure of themselves, collectively if not individually, the Americans squandered a lead and allowed their opponents to pull even at 2-2 in the top of the sixth.
And unlike a night earlier, when an overmatched Czech Republic team hung around but never really threatened to pull the upset against the United States, the opponent on this night, having already taken Japan to extra innings earlier in the day, was entirely capable of walking out of Hall of Fame Stadium with a win.
What Team USA could eventually be took over from there.
Facing Australia’s Justine Smethurst, who first appeared in the World Cup in 2005, pitched Hawaii to a super regional trip to Knoxville in 2007 and earned a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics, momentum seemed headed Down Under. Instead, the United States benefitted from a few Australian misplays in the field behind Smethurst but also seized the initiative in taking full advantage of the good fortune to push across three runs and hold on for a 5-2 win.
There is some truth to the idea that great teams are those which bounce back from adversity. (There is also a great deal of truth to the idea that great teams don’t give themselves many opportunities to prove it). This United States team has a long way to go to be great, but after spending the opening game and the Czech Republic and much of the early innings against Australia looking like a team a little daunted by the uniform it was wearing, it went out in the bottom of the sixth and acted like a team that realized it had the pieces in place to do the intimidating.
You aren’t going to play flawlessly in the field? Team USA has the speed to make you pay. You’re going to intentionally walk Brittany Schutte to get the Valerie Arioto? Team USA has the depth to make you pay.
Some days will be two steps backwards and one step forward. Other days will see the latter outnumber the former. Either way it’s nice when the last step is one in the right direction.
Especially with a long day against Canada and Japan ahead on Saturday.
Player of the Game
Stacey May-Johnson turned in another good game, driving in the game’s first run in the fourth and running out a grounder in the sixth that turned her into the eventual go-ahead run when Stacey Porter misplayed the ball at third. Schutte followed that with a double that nearly cleared the fence in left and held her own behind the plate on defense. Arioto delivered the big hit, a two-run triple to score May-Johnson and Katie Cochran and break the tie in the sixth. But even if she wasn’t part of the drama that eventually won the game, Jordan Taylor gets the nod.
Taylor took a no-decision after being charged with the tying run in the sixth after she was relieved by Keilani Ricketts, but give the former Michigan star credit for a steady, workmanlike effort. That doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement (and admittedly, “workmanlike” isn’t the first adjective that generally comes to mind for Cat Osterman or Monica Abbott), but it is. Working with the team’s least experienced defensive catcher in Schutte, at least in terms of college service behind the plate, Taylor navigated her way out of trouble when it arose, showing the must-have ability in international play to get strikeouts in big spots, and held her own in the heat. She wasn’t perfect, but she looked comfortable from the outset.
When her teammates followed that lead, the win came, even if Taylor didn’t get it.
Graham Hays 