Just like their compadres on the hardwood, Team USA Baseball is one win away from a gold medal, a 7-2 win over South Korea in the repechage bracket final advancing the Americans to the championship game.
Team USA led 2-1 going into the bottom of the sixth, and broke it open with a five-run inning. Todd Frazier started the rally, walking and later scoring on a Mark Koloszvary RBI single, and Tyler Austin finished it, rapping a two-out, two-run single to cap the five-run frame.
South Korea got one back in the seventh on a single, a double, and an error, but Anthony Gose came in to strike out the final two batters of the inning, and Gose and Anthony Carter put up zeroes in the final two frames to close it out.
Frazier was 1-for-3 with the walk and run scored, Austin was 2-for-4 with the two RBI, and Jack Lopez and Jamie Westbrook each added two hits while driving in three collectively.
With the win, Team USA will get the chance to avenge their only loss of the tournament when they face Japan in the gold medal game at 7 p.m. local time Saturday night (6 a.m. EDT). Japan defeated the USA 7-6 in 10 innings on Monday, and the Americans will likely face the same starter in Masahiro Tanaka.
South Korea will play the Dominican Republic in the bronze medal game earlier Saturday. Israel (fifth place) and Mexico (sixth) rounded out the squads in the six-team tournament.
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