U.S. softball team will play for gold medal
Associated Press

BLACKTOWN, Australia -- After heartbreaking losses, stunning victories and streaks of winning and losing, the U.S. softball team is right where it expected to
be: playing for an Olympic gold medal.

Sweeping a day-night doubleheader on Monday to avenge losses to China and Australia, the Americans now play the only other team to have beaten them in the round-robin: Japan.

With a win on Tuesday, the defending Olympic champions would cap a remarkable comeback from an unprecedented three-game losing streak that took them to the brink of elimination.

"The best part is: We get to face every team that beat us in the round-robin," pitcher Michelle Smith said. "Now, when it counts."

Stacey Nuveman homered in the third extra inning to beat China 3-0 in the first game and set up a grudge match with Australia. In the nightcap, Lisa Fernandez struck out 13 Aussies to win 1-0 and advance to the championship against unbeaten Japan.

"We took care of China. We took care of Australia," Nuveman said. "Now we have to take care of Japan."

After losing to Japan and the United States by identical 1-0 scores, Australia gets the bronze medal. China, which lost to the Americans in the gold medal game in the 1996 Olympics but beat them 2-0 in 14 innings in the round-robin this year, finished fourth.

Heavily favored before the three losses, the Americans have won four consecutive games since then, beating non-contenders New Zealand and Italy to reach the medal round before facing China in the semifinals.

Smith struck out 10 in eight innings before Christa Williams pitched two hitless innings for the win -- a victory celebrated by chants of "U-S-A!" from Tom Lasorda and the U.S. baseball team, which came by after practice.

"This is the United States of America. We pull for everybody," said the former Los Angeles Dodgers manager, whose own Olympic team has won twice so far
on dramatic homers. "As long as they wear the red, white and blue flag, we love them."

The crowds at the night game were more hostile, hoping to cheer their Aussies to the gold medal. But the women's soccer team made itself heard, coming out to the Sydney suburbs after arriving from Canberra earlier in the day.

"The baseball team, when they came to that game, it was a tremendous lift for us," Fernandez said. "And then to look up in the stands and see the women's soccer team up there ... I just want to thank the fans of USA softball who
stuck with us through the tough times."

The Americans had not scored a run in regulation in any of its four previous games against playoff teams. But this time they took care of things early, scoring with two outs in the fifth.

Nuveman's grounder eluded shortstop Natalie Ward, then Leah O'Brien-Amico singled. Dot Richardson followed with a single to center that Simmone Morrow let by, enabling pinch-runner Jennifer McFalls to score without a throw.

The soccer players spurred Fernandez on, mocking a local cheer heard endlessly in Australia by yelling, "Lisa! Lisa! Lisa! Oi! Oi! Oi!"

And, after two stellar but disappointing performances against the Aussies, Fernandez finally finished them off.

Bouncing around in the pitcher's circle like a boxer between rounds, Fernandez allowed just one hit and one walk. She retired the last 12 batters, fanning eight in a row to get the first out in the seventh.

But the next two batters, Peta Edebone and Joanne Brown, posed problems: they had both homered off Fernandez in the Olympics before. Rather than try to strike them out, she made sure she didn't give them a chance to tie the game with one swing.

Edebone, who hit a 13th-inning homer off her to win in the preliminaries, grounded out to third with one out in the seventh. Brown, who hit a game-winning homer off Fernandez in the Americans' only loss of the 1996 Olympics -- spoiling a perfect game in the 10th -- bounced it back to the mound to end the game.

"How ironic it was to face them again," she said.

Japan advanced directly to the gold medal game by beating Australia 1-0 in the first semifinal, which matched the two top-ranked teams after the preliminaries. China and the United States were Nos. 3 and 4.

The unusual playoff system employed in softball gives the loser of the first semifinal another chance at the gold medal game if it can beat the winner of the other semifinal.

It also gives the Americans a chance to avenge its three earlier defeats that snapped a 112-game winning streak.

"It was, like, `All right, we dug our grave. Now we've got to get ourselves out of it," Nuveman said. "So what if a 112-game streak got broken. The five-game streak (to win the gold medal) is what we want.

"We're four-fifths of the way there."