Olympics: U.S. forced to extra innings for softball win

By Tom Withers, The Associated Press

BEIJING — One more for gold. One more before goodbye.

Pushed to extra innings, the U.S. Olympic softball team scored four runs in the ninth inning and beat Japan 4-1 this morning to move within one win of its fourth straight gold medal — in the sport’s farewell for now.

Crystl Bustos hit a three-run homer — almost out of Fengtai Field — in the ninth inning as the Americans extended their Olympic winning streak to 22.

On a hazy, hot and humid morning, the U.S. had to sweat like never before in this tournament.

Blanked for eight innings by Yukiko Ueno, the Americans (8-0) got an RBI single from Caitlin Lowe in the ninth before Bustos put it out of reach to get the U.S. into softball’s last gold-medal game until at least 2016.

Tied after seven, the teams went to the international tiebreaker in the eighth as both began their at-bats with a runner at second base. Neither could score in the eighth, and they went to the ninth knotted.

The U.S. team started the inning with Natasha Watley on second, and she scored when Lowe bounced a single off Japan shortstop Rei Nishiyama’s glove and into center field, sending the Americans pouring out of the dugout in relief and celebration.

Jessica Mendoza walked, and despite having first base open, Japan decided to pitch to Bustos, softball’s greatest power hitter.

She made them pay with her fifth homer of these Games and the 13th of her three-Olympic career — a blast to left field that landed about five rows from the top of the 10,000-seat stadium.

Former University of Tennessee star Monica Abbott pitched eight shutout innings for the U.S., which could face Japan again for gold Thursday. The Japanese will play the Australia-Canada semifinal winner later in the bronze-medal game with the winner meeting the Americans.

For eight innings, the zeros on the center-field scoreboard nearly outnumbered the Olympic logos ringing the ballpark’s outfield wall.

Ueno and Abbott were going pitch for pitch, out for out in the tournament’s best game by far.

The U.S. had its best scoring threat in the sixth when Tairia Flowers singled leading off, and Lowe was awarded first base with one out when Ueno didn’t get her 3-2 pitch off in the required 20 seconds.

But Mendoza, who came in batting .421 with four homers, lined out to third baseman Megu Hirose, who snapped a throw to first and doubled off Lowe.

Behind Abbott, the U.S. team had beaten Japan 7-0 in round-robin play, needing just five innings to discard the 2004 bronze medalist before the game was halted by the international run-rule — one of five walkovers by the Americans in the preliminaries.

But with so much at stake this matchup figured to be different, and was it ever. It was the toughest test yet for the Americans, who have outscored the field 57-2.