Ghana failed to book a spot in the next phase of baseball qualifiers for the Tokyo-Japan 2020 Olympic Games when they lost narrowly to Nigeria in the finals of the West Africa pre-qualifying tournament played at the Koshine baseball field in Accra.
The West African zone pre-qualifying tournament also had in attendance a team from neighbouring Burkina Faso.
The Ghana and Nigeria finals traveled the entire 7 innings limit agreed upon ahead of the tournament.
Both teams took their chances in each inning of the game with Ghana being on top with 5 runs to 3 at the end of the fifth inning but the Nigerians drew even on runs through an error from a Ghanaian catcher.
The Ghanaians regained the lead by a run in the 6th inning but once again the visitors came back strongly, hitting a double that went through infield to record 7 runs against 6 at the end of the game.
It was the second defeat for the Ghanaians who lost abysmally by 4 runs to 14 to Burkina Faso in a one sided contest.
The Nigerian also lost their earlier game to Burkina in a shocking 3 runs to 13.
Uganda and Kenya has also qualified to the next stage of the competition to be played in South Africa from the May 1-5, 2019.
BY VICTOR A. BUXTON
