Shawn Hill tossed five scoreless innings and Jimmy Van Ostrand and Cole Armstrong came up with clutch hits as Canada defeated Japan 3-1 Monday at the 39th IBAF World Cup.

The win puts Canada's record at 2-0, good for first place in Pool A standings.

"It was a great effort today," said Canadian manger, Ernie Whitt. "Japan always has good pitching and defence, and that's exactly what we saw today."

After Japan went scoreless in the top of the first, Canada opened the scoring when Skyler Stromsmoe led-off with a walk and proceeded to steal second base. With two out, Van Ostrand doubled to the gap in left-centre which brought Stromsmoe home.

In the fourth, Canada again struck with two outs when Tim Smith singled on a hard shot back to the pitcher and Shawn Bowman doubled to put runners on second and third base. Armstrong came to the plate and hit a double to right field, putting the Canadians up by three.

"Our veteran guys were huge for us today," Whitt said. "They know what it means to represent their country and they came through for us today."

Hill was outstanding from the get-go for Canada as he held Japan to only one hit through four innings and ended up giving his team five scoreless innings of work.

"Shawn did a great job for us," Whitt said. "It was probably one more inning that we expected his first time out, so hopefully he feels good tomorrow and will be ready to go in another four days."

Hill's five innings saw him give up only three hits and a walk, while striking out three, while facing eighteen batters.

Japan scored their lone run of the game in the sixth when a ball caromed off Stromsmoe's glove into centre field, allowing a runner on third base to score. Jay Johnson had started the inning for Canada and walked the leadoff batter before two consecutive groundballs advanced the runner to third.

Johnson walked the next batter and was relieved by Chris Kissock, who got the next batter to groundout before coming back out for the seventh where he kept Japan off the scoreboard.

Jimmy Henderson came into pitch the final out of the eighth inning and earned the save by pitching a scoreless ninth inning.

Canada will face Greece on Tuesday.