Playing for the bronze medal at the Women's Baseball World Cup in the shadow of NASA's rocket launch pads in Viera, Fla., Amanda Asay and Team Canada found their Tranquility Base.
They beat the host Americans 8-5 Friday in 10 innings to clinch another piece of World Cup hardware.
"It was an incredible baseball game, probably one of the best ones of the tournament," said Asay. "It was back and forth all day and pretty awesome to be part of. It's always a pretty big rivalry."
The 30-year-old from Prince George has been part of the national team since 2005 and now has five Women's Baseball World Cups medals.
Ranked by Baseball America last year as the world's seventh-best female baseball player, Asay won silver in 2008 and 2016, and bronze in 2006 and 2012. She also helped Canada to the silver medal at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.
"We have a couple silvers, so that was a good feeling getting into the final game, but this bronze medal, beating the Americans on their home soil in such an incredible game, was pretty special as well.
"We were playing international tiebreaker rules, so we started with baserunners on first and second and that started from the eighth inning on and amazingly no one scored until the 10th."
Asay, Canada's starter, pitched 5 2/3 innings and gave up just five hits while allowing no earned runs with three strikeouts and two walks.
Canada outscored the Americans 5-2 in the 10th. Nicole Luchanski started it with a bunt which left everybody safe and the bases loaded. Daphnee Gelinas then hit a run-scoring single - her fourth RBI of the game - and Anne-Sophie Lavalee made it 5-3 with a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch. Mia Valke drove in another and Ashley Stephenson followed with a two-run base hit.
The Americans got to within three and had the tying run at the plate in the 10th but hit into a game-ending double play.
The U.S. scored two runs in the first inning to take the early lead, one on an error and one when Asay hit a batter with the bases loaded.
"It was actually my error, a comebacker to the mound and I threw it away, can't blame anyone on that one," laughed Asay.
Gelinas erased the lead in the fifth with a three-run home run. The Americans tied it in the bottom of the seventh with a one-out double off Allison Schroder of Fruitvale, who came out to relieve Asay with two out and a runner on third in the sixth inning. She ended the inning with a strikeout.
Asay beat the Cubans 10-7 in Canada's second game of the tournament a week ago Thursday. She earned her second victory on the mound Tuesday when she threw a complete-game one-hitter in a 5-0 win over Venezuela. In that game she hit six batters.
Asay was inserted into the Canadian batting order in a 6-4 semifinal loss to Chinese-Taipei on Thursday and went 2-for-4 at the plate with a double, single and two runs batted in.
Japan won World Cup gold for the sixth-straight time, beating Chinese Taipei 6-0 Friday.
Asay attended Brown University in Providence, R.I., on a hockey/academic scholarship and also played for the Brown softball team. This month she will complete her PhD studies in forestry at UBC in Vancouver and plans to return to Prince George in October.
Unlike Team Canada manager Andre Lachance, who plans to retire from the national team this year, Asay says she will keep playing ball. She prepared for the tournament playing in the Lower Mainland Baseball Association for a men's team and for an all-female team that also played in the league.
"I don't know where life's going to take me but I'm hoping to continue to play for a while longer," Asay said. "I'll be on the job hunt pretty soon."
