WA 18's Claim Gold in Extra Innings
Written by David Penrose - Baseball Australia. Western Australia has topped Queensland 11-9 in extra innings in the 2020 U18 Australian Youth Championship gold medal game at Geelong Baseball Centre on Wednesday night. WA overturned a five-run deficit to take the lead before needing an extra inning to claim its first U18 title since 2017 in a thrilling contest on diamond one.
QLD v WA: Box Score and play-by-play Taiyo Kurosawa doubled with runners on first and second after the eighth started under international tiebreak rules, giving Western Australia the lead. Bailey-Jay Cooke’s two-run double gave WA a three-run cushion. Queensland added a run in the bottom of the eighth but Maddux Stivey was able to close out the victory. Western Australia rallied from 7-2 down entering the fifth. They scored twice in the fifth and four times in the sixth to take the lead. Cooke drove in the go-ahead run with his third hit of the ballgame. But Queensland responded in the bottom of the seventh, forcing extras on Tim Preston’s sacrifice fly. Earlier, WA opened the scoring on Stivey’s two-run homer. Queensland then scored four runs in the bottom of the first and three across the next two innings to take a handy lead. Cooke had four RBIs on four hits for WA. Kyle Ashby and Toma Faulkner drove in two runs for Queensland.
