Pro Softball: Smith pitches complete game win

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Michele Smith pitched a complete game and hit the game-winning single to give the WPSL Gold Team a 5-2 victory over the WPSL All-Stars Friday night at Hall of Fame Stadium. The win was the fourth in a row for the Gold Team.

The game will air on ESPN2 Thursday, June 21 at 8 p.m. ET.

Smith re-joined the Gold Team Sunday, flying in from Japan where she competes in the Japanese Professional League.

"She pitched pretty well tonight," Gold Team Head Coach Judy Martino said after the game on Monday. "It was good for her to get out there and throw all seven innings. I told this team 'you are going to get hit this summer' and we had to come through offensively to win this ball game."

The WPSL All-Stars earned their first lead of the tour in the top of the second inning. Kim Maher opened the inning with a double down the right-field line. Monica Armendarez bunted to advance Maher to third, followed by a single up the middle from Lyndsey Klein to plate the first run.

The All-Stars increased the lead to 2-0 in the third inning. Patti Benedict singled to open the inning and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Kellyn Tate. Benedict scored on an error by Gold short stop Crystl Bustos.

The Gold Team got on the board in the fourth inning. Kelly Kretschman walked and stole second, followed by a single up the middle by Bustos to score Kretschman.

The Gold blew the game open in the bottom of the sixth inning. Jennifer McFalls opened the inning with a walk and advanced to third on another single up the middle from Bustos. McFalls scored on a sacrifice fly from Sheila Douty. A pair of walks from Amy Kyler loaded the bases for the Gold Team. All-Stars' Head Coach Tim Kiernan replaced Kyler with Kaci Clark. Smith took the second pitch from Clark up the middle to score a pair of runs. A sacrifice fly by Michelle Venturella finished the scoring for the Gold Team.

Smith finished the game with 10 strikeouts and just one earned run.

The WPSL has adopted an expansion plan to relaunch the league in six to eight markets in 2002, with growth to 12 markets by 2004. The WPSL expansion plan takes into consideration the need to re-shape the past structure of the league to accommodate the addition of new strategic partners vital to future growth and success.

To support the relaunch of the league, the WPSL will feature the "Tour of Fastpitch Champions" in the summer of 2001. The centerpiece of this year's tour will be two WPSL teams - the WPSL Gold Team featuring 2000 Sydney Olympians from the US, Canada and China and the WPSL All-Star team comprised of the best WPSL league-wide talent. From June through August these teams will tour through 11 cities targeted as WPSL expansion candidates to play head-to-head as well as against Team Canada and the USA National Teams. Ten of these games will be televised, eight on ESPN2 and two "live" on ESPN, a first for the WPSL.

For more information, go to the WPSL website.