{"id":15975,"date":"2012-02-13T10:29:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T18:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=15975"},"modified":"2012-02-13T10:30:29","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T18:30:29","slug":"australian-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=15975","title":{"rendered":"Australian Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15976\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15976\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.canberratimes.com.au\/news\/local\/sport\/softball\/acts-finest-step-up-to-plate\/2452553.aspx?storypage=0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Canberra-Times.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Canberra Times\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15976\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Canberra-Times.jpg 225w, http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Canberra-Times-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15976\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click logo to read complete story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>BY COURTNEY REES, The Canberra Times<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The ACT may only be a speck on the Australian map, but Canberra is the giant of men&#8217;s softball.<\/p>\n<p>The Raiders have won three NRL premierships, the Brumbies have won two Super Rugby grand finals. The Canberra Capitals boast seven titles, while Canberra United is the current queen of W-League soccer.<\/p>\n<p>But the ACT men&#8217;s softball team comes out in front of them all and heads to Sydney today in a quest to equal a national record 11 Australian titles.<\/p>\n<p>Canberra&#8217;s team is batting way above average and has dominated Australian softball for the past decade, winning six national titles and missing the grand final just once.<\/p>\n<p>The team is just one title away from equalling Western Australia in the 29-year history of the competition with 11 titles and will get its chance starting today at the national championships in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p>But why has the small territory had so much success?<\/p>\n<p>Current Australian and former ACT coach Bob Harrow believes the wealth of local talent unearthed has been the key to the success.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;We just have an abundance of talent to work with,&#8221; he said. &#8221;We had a group of players that were young and willing to learn and that made a big difference and right now we have the best group of players you could wish for in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some of these players include Adam Folkard and Andrew Kirkpatrick who Harrow rates as the two best pitchers in the world.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.canberratimes.com.au\/news\/local\/sport\/softball\/acts-finest-step-up-to-plate\/2452553.aspx?storypage=0\">Click here to continue reading.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY COURTNEY REES, The Canberra Times The ACT may only be a speck on the Australian map, but Canberra is the giant of men&#8217;s softball. The Raiders have won three NRL premierships, the Brumbies have won two Super Rugby grand finals. The Canberra Capitals boast seven titles, while Canberra United is the current queen of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oceania","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15978,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975\/revisions\/15978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}