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Friday, September 22
Brundage 3-for-3 for United States
Associated Press
BLACKTOWN, Australia -- When its line drives kept curving
foul and the easy grounders all stayed fair, the U.S. softball team
began to suspect something other-worldly was behind its
unprecedented losing streak.
|  | | The U.S. softball team is happy to break its short hex in Sydney. |
A team this powerful could not merely be slumping. One-hundred
twelve victories in a row had convinced the players of that.
So they gathered in their house at the athlete's village, still
wearing the uniforms they had soiled with a third consecutive loss.
It was Lisa Fernandez's idea.
It was Lori Harrigan's shower.
"It just seemed like we were cursed," Fernandez said after the
defending Olympic champions followed a semi-serious cleansing
ritual with a 2-0 victory over New Zealand on Friday (Thursday
night ET). "I said, 'We've got to get the curse off."'
Jennifer Brundage went 3-for-3 with a homer, and Harrigan
pitched a one-hitter for 5 1-3 innings as the Americans moved just
one victory from the medal round.
Harrigan, who pitched a no-hitter in the tournament opener,
struck out eight before she was lifted with one out in the sixth.
Christa Williams got the last five outs for the save.
More importantly, the Americans scored their first runs in
regulation after three games without one. "It was a big sigh of
relief to get that first run in the first seven innings," Brundage
said.
The Americans had never lost three games in a row, and they had
not lost at all in two years. But their 112-game winning streak was
a receding memory and their gold-medal hopes were in danger when
they piled into the shower and scrubbed their uniforms of the bad
luck they knew must be there.
"We're just Down Under, and things are a little opposite,"
said Dot Richardson, who made two errors in the loss to Japan that
was the Americans' first in two years. "We needed to start
thinking a little differently."
They brought along the uniforms -- the same ones they wore
against New Zealand -- for those who couldn't be there and washed
them down, too. They jumped up and down, chanting, "Voodoo,
Gone!"
And as the water washed down the drain, so did the losing
streak.
"It just got all the bad stuff off," Fernandez said. "The
voodoo's gone. We're ready to rock and roll."
The Americans (3-3) would advance to the medal round with a
victory over Italy on Saturday. Once there, they would need to win
three consecutive games to repeat as gold medalists.
"Everybody talked about how many games in a row we won,"
Richardson said. "We would take a five-game winning streak right
now over any 112-game winning streak."
The team also held a more serious, less soapy meeting in which
the players threw a softball around the room. The person who caught
the ball had to talk about something she was doing well.
The U.S. hitters, who came into the game batting just .181,
managed six hits off Kiwi workhorse Gina Weber. Brundage homered to
lead off the second inning, then scored on Richardson's groundout
with the bases loaded in the fourth.
"We knew that they desperately wanted to win this game. They
wouldn't have made the playoffs, and that would be the first
time," said Weber, whose team was eliminated with the loss.
"I thought they would come back stronger. And they did."
This victory probably had more to do with the competition.
New Zealand (2-4) was tied with the United States entering the
game but is now firmly entrenched in the bottom tier in the
eight-team tournament. None of the bottom four teams has beaten any
of the top four.
Also Friday, Cuba beat Canada 2-1 for its first Olympic softball
victory. Australia played China with second place -- and a bye in
the medal round -- on the line, and tournament-leader Japan played
Italy.
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U.S. softball loses heartbreaker vs. Aussies
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