Defending champions the United States (7-0) swept past underdog South Africa (0-7) 10-0 Saturday, wrapping up their Pool A round-robin preliminaries with seven wins out of as many games at the women's softball World Championship.

The United States, Pool leaders, are too strong for South Africa, Pool dwarfs, by allowing their opponents only one hit in five innings. Alicia Hollowell struck out the first three batters of South Africa to establish the United States a 2-0 lead through Natasha Watley and Crystl Bustos' doubles.

Watley contributed another RBI single in the second inning. And then the Americans notched three more runs in the third inning, thanks to Andrea Duran, Victoria Galindo and Caitlin Lowe's RBI singles.

Jessica Mendoza, Natasha Watley, Jenny Topping and Amanda Freed scored another four runs to seal the victory in the fourth.

Alicia Hollowell, who pitched for first time in the championship, tossed a complete game producing six strikeouts and dropping only one hit.

Candice Stephens posted the only hit for South Africa and was also the only one who reached the second base.

South African starter Zelda Kutumela struck out one and gave up nine hits with one walk. Reliever Nicolene Jones gave up three more hits.

"We knew it's gonna to be a difficult game, because the United States is the No. 1 team. We came here to try our best to optimum. We used our very slowest pitcher in the team, and she actually maintained the goal for three innings, which was good luck to us," said Basil Peters, South Africa coach.

"We had no preparation in international games, only in Africa. but the girls played unexpectedly well and seemed that we did have preparation."

"I think I did very well. The whole team actually did very well, more than we expected, especially when thinking that we were playing the top team in the world. For the whole game, I really think we did very well, our fielding was good, and our batting was very well. Excellent," South Africa pitcher Zelda Kutumela said.

"This is actually my first big world championship, and I'm very happy. I've learnt a lot, especially from Japan, United States and China. Their batting is very good and their fielding is excellent. And I think we still need practice," she added.

The United States will play against Australia in their first game of playoffs.

The playoffs will utilize the double page system. The page system shall comprise of two semifinals, one final and one grand final.

First semi-final for teams ranked third and fourth in the round-robin for a place in the final. Second semi-final for teams ranked first and second in round-robin for a place in the grand final.

The winners of the first semi-final and the loser of the second semi-final shall play for the second place in the grand final, while the loser is third.

The winner of second semi-final and the winner of the final shall play for gold.

The World Softball Championship is the first Olympic test event in Beijing with 16 teams competing in two pools, which will produce four spots (excluding China, the host) participating in the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Source: Xinhua