By Adam Morissette

Baseball Canada

WASHINGTON, DC – The Women’s National Team rallied from a three-run deficit and settled for a 4-4 tie with USA Baseball’s Women’s National Team Development Program at the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy.

Canada outhit USA 13-6 but had to play catch-up after falling behind 4-1 after five innings.

Claire Eccles (Surrey, B.C.) gave Canada a solid start on the mound allowing one run on two hits and three walks over three innings of work, while Amanda Asay (Prince George, B.C.) tossed three scoreless innings in late relief.

Canada opened the scoring in the second after Madison Willan’s (Edmonton, Alta.) two-out double brought in Jenn Gilroy (Mississauga, Ont.) from first base.

The U.S. answered back with a run in the third before scoring a pair in the fourth and adding a single in the fifth.

Nicole Luchanski (Edmonton, Alta.) led off the sixth with a single before Canada loaded the bases on singles from Pascal Jalbert (St-Honoré, Que.) and Marie-France Castillo (Laval, Que.). Back-to-back U.S. errors brought in two runs before Carrie Jesperson (Spruce Grove, Alta.) tied the score with an RBI single in the seventh.

Eight different players collected hits for Team Canada including Jalbert, Castillo, Willan, Jesperson and Emma March (Vancouver, B.C.) who had two apiece.

Up Next: The series concludes on Sunday at the Washington Nationals Youth Academy as both Canada and the United States playing split-squad games at 11 am E.T. and 4 p.m. E.T. Follow live here: http://sidearmstats.com/usabaseball/national_team/