Larissa Franklin of Maple Ridge is on the field with the Canadian Women’s National Softball Team at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, and they will play for fifth place on Wednesday.
The tournament features the top eight teams from the WBSC Women’s Softball World Rankings, competing for the world title. Franklin is one of seven members of the same squad that took bronze at the 2020 Toyko Games.
After missing the medal rounds, the Canadian women beat Mexico 8-1 on Tuesday morning. Franklin had a pair of singles that both drove in runners in the game, and also scored a run herself.
The Canadian women started the tourney with a 9-4 loss to Chinese Taipei on Saturday. Franklin doubled and scored in that game.
Sunday they got back to even, as they beat Italy 10-4, in a game that saw the Ridge woman suffer a hit-by-pitch, only to steal second and then score. She also had two singles and an RBI. Canada was down 4-0 early, but came back with a four-run sixth inning.
Their last must-win game of the preliminary round turned into a 10-2 loss to Team USA, in five innings, that eliminated Canada from the medal round.
Canada will now advance to the fifth-place game, facing Puerto Rico.
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Franklin, 29, has enjoyed a great softball career, winning bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, and twice medalling at the Pan American Games – silver in 2019 in Lima, and gold in 2015 in Toronto.
She played NCAA ball at Indiana-Purdue University in Fort Wayne, where she led the team in many offensive categories, and set school records in hits with 207, and stolen bases with 71. Then she transferred to Western Kentucky University, where she tied the school’s longest hit streak at 15 games.
Franklin was on the junior national team in 2011, and joined the senior squad in 2013 – when she promptly won silver at the WBSC Americas Qualifier. Since then, she has been a fixture in the outfield for softball’s Team Canada.
Her many international competitions include the 2014, 2016 and 2018 WBSC Women’s Softball World Championships, where she helped Canada to bronze in the last two tourneys.
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