Amanda Asay has had five days to watch the Pan Am Games in Toronto.
Today in Ajax, Ont., she becomes switches from spectator to participant.
The 27-year-old from Prince George and her Canadian national team will take on Cuba starting at 4:05 p.m. PDT in their first game at the five-team tournament.
"We've seen them play quite a lot so that bodes well for us," said Asay. "Cuba is a baseball country with a lot of good players but if we do the little things right, we should do well."
Canada is ranked fourth in the world, behind Japan, the U.S. and Australia. Japan and Australia are not eligible for the tournament, the first time women's baseball has even been included in the Pan Am Games. Puerto Rico and Venezuela are the other teams entered.
Canada tuned up for the tournament Saturday in Vaughn, Ont., with a 17-15 six-inning victory over the United States in an exhibition game. Asay pitched two-thirds of an inning and had two strikeouts. She went 1-for-2 at the plate with a single and also reached on an error.
Canada has a 7-5 record against the U.S., and will face the Americans in the tournament on Friday night.
"We're pretty close to even against them," said Asay.
The Canadian women entered a midget boys tournament two weeks ago in Quebec and went winless in four games and last week split their two exhibition games against senior men's teams in Ottawa and Cornwall. That gave Team Canada manager Andre Lachance a chance to do some experimenting with the lineup and allowed the players to work out some of the bugs.
Before they played their game Saturday, Asay and her teammates went to the Blue Jays-Rays major league game at Rogers Centre Saturday, where they got down to field level to watch batting practice and posed for a photo with Canadian-born Jays catcher Russell Martin. Jays first base coach Tim Leiper, who coached Canada's men's baseball team in Pan Am gold in 2011 in Guadalajara, Mexico, gave the girls a pep talk before they had to leave for their game.
Asay is enjoying the admiration and enthusiasm from people and their "Go Canada" chants whenever they go. She's been living in the athletes village in downtown Toronto since Wednesday and has seen a steady tide of athletes arriving and leaving, some with medals around their necks.
"It was incredible to have everyone was cheering for us at the Jays game - it's still pretty surreal for a lot of us,' said Asay. "We've gone to a few events like men's fastball and saw Canada in the round-robin against Venezuela and we saw some of our swimmers medalling a few times. I still feel a lot like a spectator."
Today's game will be broadcast live on CBC TV. The gold medal game is scheduled for Sunday.
