USA celebrates after winning the gold medal at the World Games. Photo courtesy WBSC.

Rain had pushed the semifinals to the tournament's final day. Instead of there being an evening between the semifinal matchup and the medal stage, now the final four national softball teams at the World Games -- USA, Japan, Canada, and Chinese Taipei -- would need to win out in a doubleheader to return home with gold.

For USA, who had started with three consecutive victories over Chinese Taipei, the Netherlands, and China, that meant going up against the No. 1 ranked nation, Japan -- who had defeated the USA 2-0 for gold at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo -- in the morning.

The matchup lived up to the rivalry billing: the two teams trading runs deep into extra innings before Japan once again took a 6-

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