Canadians Fall to Cuba

ATHENS ? The Canadian Olympic baseball team’s path to a gold medal hit a roadblock today with a 5-2 defeat against Cuba, dropping Canada’s record to 4-2 with one game remaining in round-robin play.

"The last two games I was not happy with the intensity of our players," said manager Ernie Whitt after the game. "Today, I was happy with the intensity level but we still made mistakes and you can’t do that against teams of this caliber."

Canada fell behind early in the game as Cuba jumped to a 3-0 lead in the second inning, hitting an RBI-double and a two-run home run off right-hander Jason Dickson (London, Ont.), who gave up a total of four runs on six hits in five innings en route to taking the loss.

Trailing 4-0 in the seventh inning, Canada mounted some offence with a two-run single by Ryan Radmanovich (Calgary, Alta.), scoring Pierre-Luc Laforest (Hull, Que.) and Danny Klassen (Leamington, Ont.).

Since outscoring its opponents 23-3 through its first three games, Canada has tallied five runs while allowing 14 in its last three contests.

"I don’t think there’s a concern," said first baseman Todd Betts (East York, Ont.), one of five players with a team-high five years of national team experience. "We didn’t execute today," he added. "We had guys on base but couldn’t score them."

"Hopefully, (today’s game) will be a wake-up call to us that we need to come out and play mistake-free baseball," said Whitt.

Canada, competing with Australia and the Netherlands for one of two remaining spots in the four-team medal round beginning Aug. 24, will play its final round-robin contest tomorrow against Australia, which holds a record of 3-2 entering tonight’s game against the Netherlands (2-3).

Left-hander Phil Devey (St. Jerome, Que.) is scheduled to start for Canada against the Australians tomorrow, making his debut in the tournament.