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Undefeated U.S. softball team moves on to gold medal game against rival Japan
Softball is back on the Olympic program after a 13-year absence and Team USA is one win away from taking home the gold.
On Sunday night ET/Monday morning Tokyo time, the United States women's softball team came from behind to defeat No. 2 ranked Japan, 2-1, at Yokohama Baseball Stadium.
The win gives the U.S. the right to bat last in the gold medal game – also against Japan – on Tuesday (7 a.m. ET).
Both the U.S. and Japan were undefeated (4-0) in group play headed into Sunday night's (ET) game, which determined seeding for the gold medal game.
Japan scored in the first inning, and despite failing to get a hit in the first five innings, held a 1-0 lead over the U.S. heading into the final two frames. That's when Team USA came back in a big way. The U.S. knotted things up in the bottom of the sixth inning with a hit from Valerie Arioto, then won it in the seventh on a walk-off home run from former Florida Gators star Kelsey Stewart that just cleared the glove of Japan's right fielder Yuka Ichiguchi. It was the U.S.'s first home run of the tournament.
Stewart had been 1-for-12 with no RBIs at the Olympics before connecting on the 98th pitch from Japan's Yamato Fujita, per ESPN, which gave Team USA the win and made them the home team in the gold medal game.
"It's like you dream about when you're a little kid, about hitting a home run at the Olympics, let alone a walk-off," Stewart said.
In round-robin play, the U.S. scored nine runs on 27 hits with just the one home run by Stewart.
Team USA will now face Japan again for gold, and it's a rematch of the title game at the 2008 Beijing Games – the last time softball was an Olympic sport – which Japan won 3-1. The U.S. will face tough competition in Japan’s 39-year-old ace, Yukiko Ueno, who is the first pitcher ever to produce a perfect game at the Olympics.
The U.S. and Japan are the only nations to have won gold in softball, with the Americans winning in Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004), per CBS.
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