CIRCUIT CITY IN GAME THREE

The Canada champion Langley, British Columbia used two homeruns by shortstop Mike Erickson and sound pitching from Jeff Duda to lead the team to a 4-3 victory over Latin America.

Erickson belted his first homer in the first with one runner on. His second came in fifth and was a solo shot.

"The first one I hit on a pitch right down the middle," Erickson said. "I got under the second one and felt lucky to hit it over."

Mexico's pitcher, Daniel Baca, pitched fine, but made a couple of critical mistakes. He struck out six in six complete innings of work.

"His performance was no better or worse than usual," said Jose Valadez, manager of the Mexican team.

Sean Sargent, the starting pitcher for Canada went down with a minor arm injury. Jared Krouse threw one inning before Jeff Duda took over. Duda struck out eight of a possible nine outs in three innings of work.

"Jeff has been our number one guy all along," said Brian Sargent, manager of the Canadian champion.

Canada got the job done with pitching and offense. Sargent estimated that his kids had hit about 50 homeruns in this 1998 post-season. For Erickson, he hit his fourth and fifth shots, and for Sargent, he hit his 10th.

The great play by Coach Sargent's team did not surprise him: 

"Believe me, it was no walk in the park," he said. "I feel really well about defeating the defending champions. We were ready to play today."

Game three's attendance was 4,600.

--Mark Rogoff
   Special Correspondent