{"id":19664,"date":"2013-02-10T10:57:46","date_gmt":"2013-02-10T18:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=19664"},"modified":"2013-02-10T10:57:46","modified_gmt":"2013-02-10T18:57:46","slug":"smashing-samoans-sock-it-to-new-zealand-black-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=19664","title":{"rendered":"Smashing Samoans sock it to New Zealand Black Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Click<\/a>
Click logo for original news story and photo at The New Zealand Herald.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The New Zealand Black Sox softballers went into a week’s camp with plenty to think about after a busy weekend at the Marist club’s Brother Patrick Memorial series at Penrose.<\/p>\n

Although the side finished their schedule with a 17-0 demotion of Howick, they failed to find a batting spark in the earlier matches.<\/p>\n

The Sox and Samoa, who beat them, were not entered in the official competition.<\/p>\n

Against North Harbour Roosters the Sox managed only two hits but prospered with seven walks in a 4-1 win against Auckland’s seventh-ranked team.<\/p>\n

Young pitchers Jackson Prime and Blake Radford worked hard to tame the batters.<\/p>\n

Seven hits came in the 8-1 win over Mt Albert Ramblers but the margin came from seven walks as the pitchers tried to work around the big batters.<\/p>\n

Donny Hale hit a huge home run to score three and Brad Rona took two hits.<\/p>\n

Then came the shock when Samoa out-hit the Sox and won 5-4 in a thrilling game in front of a large crowd.<\/p>\n

Rona and former captain Jarrad Martin hit home runs but Samoa capitalised on errors and a home run to Thomas Enoka.<\/p>\n

The Patrick final came as an anticlimax with Ramblers swamping Northcote, the winner of the recent United series, 10-2 after Northcote took an early lead.<\/p>\n

Ramblers took 12 hits, including home runs from veteran John Hireme and Rhys Evans.<\/p>\n

Fifteen-year-old Evans is the season’s big find, sparkling in the field as well as reading the game wel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Zealand Black Sox softballers went into a week’s camp with plenty to think about after a busy weekend at the Marist club’s Brother Patrick Memorial series at Penrose. Although the side finished their schedule with a 17-0 demotion of Howick, they failed to find a batting spark in the earlier matches. The Sox […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19511,"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-19664","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\/19664","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=19664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19665,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19664\/revisions\/19665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}