U.S. drops championship game to Japan, 2-1
As the afternoon sun shone down on the third base concourse of Hall of Fame Stadium, hordes of young girls flocked to tables where their idols sat, still caked in the red dust from the softball diamond a couple hundred feet away.
They came clutching neon yellow-green balls and posters, hoping for a Sharpie signature on their prized possessions. Later, many of those mementos will be hung in bedrooms across Oklahoma City or placed on shelves next to Little League trophies.
To the fans swarming around the softball players decked out in navy, red and white uniforms Sunday afternoon, it didn’t matter that Japan had just beaten the United States 2-1 in the World Cup of Softball Championship title game. To them, seeing the national team players up close was like catching a glimpse of what they hoped they might do in the future.
The fans beamed as much as the players that afternoon, neither particularly fazed by the heat or the United States’ second-place finish in the
tournament.
Sure, it was tough to lose to Japan 2-1 for the second year in a row in the World Cup championship game, but this time around, U.S. coach Ken Eriksen was confident that his team finished the tournament in a really good place.
“I didn’t know where we were after the 2-1 loss last year in the gold medal game,” he said. “I know where we are right now. I’m really happy with where we’re at. We’ve got some guys that have been in the program for two, three years now and we’ve got some players that have been here five, six years.
“Our approaches at the plate were pretty darn good. Their bloop fell in today and ours didn’t. But the way we’re playing the game right now is pretty sharp ... That’s two heavyweights in the ring. That’s Ali-Frazier over and over again. Who knows who gets the break and who doesn’t. I’m pretty happy with our team.”
Beyond being happy with his team, Eriksen is happy with the growth of the sport as a whole. Throughout the week he received text messages from friends in Major League Baseball, telling him that the World Cup games were playing on televisions in their locker rooms.
With prime time coverage of the World Cup games on ESPN coupled with historic nights in the Women’s College World Series, softball is becoming more and more visible ahead of the 2020 Olympics — and that’s a great thing, Eriksen said.
“That 17-inning game now with this combination of Japan and Canada, Australia, Puerto Rico, the world now is taking notice that the game is being played a pretty high level,” he said. “It’s a really, really good game, and I think it’s going to get better.
“You’re going to see the crowd in OKC or wherever the World Cup is next year go up, the exhibition tours, you’ve got some young ladies over here that are getting to be household faces, and I think they’ll start taking off.”