By Adam Morissette

Baseball Canada

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida- The Junior National Team ran into some tough pitching coming up with just two hits while falling to the Atlanta Braves professional prospects, 8-0, on Wednesday.

The loss wraps up the annual Fall Instructional League Camp that served as an introduction to the program for 24 of the 32 players on the roster.

Box Score: Braves 8 JNT 0

Starting pitcher Griffin Hassall (Newmarket, Ont.) didn’t allow an earned run over four innings of work on the mound and struck out three batters before giving way to Theo Millas (Burnaby, B.C.) and Viktor Bergeron (Terrebonne, Que.) in relief.

The Braves got on the scoreboard in the first inning and took advantage of a single, one-out error and walk to cash in a run on a single to centre. Griffin held the Braves’’ bats in check in the second and third before an RBI single put them up by two after four innings.

Millas took over for Hassall in the fifth and sat down the first three hitters he faced on a pair of fly outs and a strikeout before a base hit and two-base error led to a wild pitch that scored the Braves’ third run of the ballgame in the sixth.

The Braves added a pair of runs in the seventh, including a solo home run, before scoring three more in the eighth.

Cesar Valero (Calgary, Alta.) and Ryan Faragher (London, Ont.) accounted for the only two Junior National Team base hits of the game.

The next Junior National Team event on the baseball calendar is the annual Spring Training Camp that will take place from March 15 to 24 in St. Petersburg, Fla.