Angry black clouds descended upon Citizen Field three hours before the opening game of the World Baseball Challenge Tuesday and the organizers cringed.
Thinking back two years ago to the rained-out opener of the 2011 WBC tournament, the last time Prince George hosted the event, they were just praying the weather gods would co-operate, and that they did. After a light sprinkle the sun and warm air returned and Team Canada and Team USA got down to business playing baseball.
Ryan Degner was sure glad he had the opportunity. The Team USA right fielder couldn't resist flexing his muscles with a bat in his hand, whacking a grand slam in the sixth inning and a two-run shot in the fifth to pump his team up with a 9-1 lead.
Not to be outdone, Prince George's own Brandon Hunter followed the same flight path as Degner and cleared the bases with a grand slam in the seventh inning, sending out a rude welcome to reliever Darrien Moran.
All of a sudden it was a 9-6 game and Canada had thoughts they might be the instigators of one of the greatest comebacks in the WBC tournament history. But it was not in the cards. Christian Bannister and Scott Kuzminsky stopped the bleeding and the U.S. scored two more in the eighth and two in the ninth to nail down a 13-6 win.
"It's nice to be out here playing with the USA and representing your country and playing well is just something that happened," said Degner, a native of Hillsboro, Ore. "I've always dreamed of this honour and to actually come out and do it is pretty cool.
"I saw the catcher go out for a mound visit and I was thinking he'd try to get ahead [in the count] early with the bases loaded and not make any mistakes later in the count and I happened to get a ball up and put my bat on it. That's what it came down to."
Degner was already making good contact with the ball by the time he got to Canadian starter Skylar Janisse for his two-run shot and he didn't go any easier on reliever Cortez Chappell, who got himself into trouble in the sixth by loading the bases with two hit batters and walk.
Hunter, 29, has a career-high nine homers this season playing senior ball at Citizen Field for the Queensway Auto World Red Sox and he felt right at home Tuesday, despite the fact his team trailed by as much as eight runs.
"We knew we weren't out of it, even in a 9-1 game, we knew we had the talent to come back, they all can swing it, it just gave me a great opportunity for some RBIs," said Hunter. "As the game went on I got a lot more comfortable and more relaxed. It's just another game, just what I've been playing my whole life. It's always nice to hit one at home."
Canada made four errors and that brought the pitch count up on Janisse, who could only battle the fatigue factor so long.
"It was just little things that beat us tonight," said Hunter. "We can swing with these guys, we can pitch with these guys and we can play defence with these guys. It was just first-game jitters and we're just a little rusty."
The boys from south of the border opened the scoring in the third inning after Roemon Fields reached on a base hit, got to second on a sacrifice bunt and Nate Mullins drove him home. They continued to chip away at Janisse in the fourth, loading the bases for Mychal Harirngton, whose sacrifice fly plated Degner. Bobby LeCount, a senior at New Mexico State, walked and tagged up from third base to make it 3-0.
Canada answered in the bottom of the fourth with two local guys -- Brooklyn Foster and Hunter -- touching off some fireworks of their own. Foster, who went three-for-five in the game, nailed the centrefield wall with a hard-hit ball off USA pitcher Gunnar Swanson. Two batters later, Hunter's ground ball got through shortstop Mullins to score Canada's first run.
That rally didn't last long enough for the partisan crowd of 1,272 in attendance at Citizen Field and Degner hammered a high pitch from Janisse over the left field wall with LeCount already on base with a single. That spelled the end of the night for Janisse. Manager Darren Doucettte signaled for Chappell, a Prince George/Fraser Lake product, who came in with two out and got Jacob Herklotz to ground out.
GAME NOTES: Canada has the day off today to licks its wounds and prepare for Wednesday night's game against Japan. USA faces Chinese Taipei today at 3 p.m., followed by the Cuba-Japan game at 7.... Janisse, a six-foot-four, 210-pound native of Maidstone, Ont., was good enough as a 17-year-old to get noticed by the New York Yankees, who drafted him in the 34th round in 2011. He was a closer for Salt Lake Community College in the spring season and will move on to Central Michigan this fall. He gave up five runs Tuesday on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings... Now signed by Lewis and Clark State College, Swanson played two seasons at Everett Community College and pitched a complete game victory in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges 2013 championship game. Swanson allowed four hits and gave up one run through 6 2/3 innings before he was replaced by Darrien Moran.
