A pair of pitchers from municipal neighbours Burnaby and Port Moody recently returned home with hardware alongside Canada's national women's baseball team.
Michelle Roche and Liz Gilder helped the host nation win bronze at the 2024 WBSC World Cup Finals earlier this month, each making at least one appearance on the hill in Thunder Bay, Ont.
Gilder was even voted to the All-World Team by tournament's end as the left-handed pitcher.
The 23-year-old recorded two strikeouts in 3.1 innings as a reliever in Canada's 9-8 comeback victory over Chinese Taipei to earn a spot in the bronze medal game.
Roche, soon-to-be 19, started that contest and threw 41 strikes on 51 pitches, but also gave up seven runs on eight hits.
The rookie right-hander also earned a save in Canada's World Cup opener against Mexico, hurling 15 strikes on 23 pitches to close the home team's 7-2 win.
"Such an honour to wear these colours," said Roche in a social media post about the championship.
Canada defeated Mexico once more by a score of 4-2 to claim the bronze medal last Saturday, Aug. 3.
The win solidified a fifth bronze and a seventh all-time medal for the national women's team, according to a news release, with silver being the other two.
This was Roche's first time representing Canada at an international competition. The Moscrop Secondary grad played for the Whalley Chiefs (Surrey) in the BC Premier Junior Baseball League in 2022, recording 31 strikeouts that led to six wins in eight regular-season games.
Gilder, an alumna of Coquitlam Moody minor baseball and the Tri-City Thunder, was also part of the bronze medal-winning Canadian team from the 2018 Women's Baseball World Cup.
