{"id":1189,"date":"2006-08-29T07:24:28","date_gmt":"2006-08-29T15:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2006-09-02T09:18:41","modified_gmt":"2006-09-02T17:18:41","slug":"prince-george-citizen-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"Sr. Canadians – Aug 29"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Prince George Citizen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tuesday, August 29, 2006<\/em><\/p>\n

Favourites avoid near-upsets<\/strong><\/p>\n

by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff<\/p>\n

\nSean O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien had mixed feelings about his home run.<\/p>\n

O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hit barely cleared the centre field fence and helped his St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials avoid an upset at the hands of Newfoundland Impact Signs during Monday afternoon play at the Canadian senior men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastpitch championship.<\/p>\n

O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solo shot at Spruce City Stadium came in the first at-bat in the top of the seventh inning and pulled the Centennials into a 2-2 tie with Impact Signs. St. Thomas, the defending champions, went on to win the game 4-2.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So why were O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s emotions pulling him in different directions? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Newfoundlander by birth.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Unfortunately, it was against my home province of Newfoundland,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You hate beating your fellow mates, but we got lucky. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good building block for our team. All the boys are pretty excited now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien connected on a rise ball offered up by Newfoundland pitcher Blair Ezekiel. Later in the top of the seventh, with two out, Chris Jones doubled to centre field and Ezekiel then issued walks to Steve Mullaley and Tyler Lessard. The next batter, Dale Levy, cracked a two-run single to give St. Thomas its first lead of the game. In the bottom of the seventh, Newfoundland couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reply. Leadoff batter Keith Maynard sent a looper into shallow right field, a ball that forced St. Thomas second baseman Lessard to make a great grab. St. Thomas ace pitcher Frank Cox fanned the next two batters \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Andrew Evans and Travis Head \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to end the game.<\/p>\n

Newfoundland, one of the younger teams in this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tournament, had taken a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning thanks to a two-run homer by Ezekiel. St. Thomas responded with a run in the top of the fifth.<\/p>\n

The Newfoundlanders, who dropped to 0-2 in the event at that point, were naturally disappointed to lose in the last inning.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Going into the seventh with the lead, you expect to come out with the win, but there is a reason why they are the defending champs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ezekiel, who gave up nine hits and had four strikeouts.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not too happy about (our record) so far but this team, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re capable of pulling out some wins. Despite the lopsided score in the first one (a 14-3 loss to Vancouver on Sunday), we looked at (Monday) for a big start and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we got. The two teams we faced are probably the best two teams here, on paper.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The St. Thomas-Newfoundland game was a rematch of last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s championship final, won 7-1 by St. Thomas. This year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Newfoundland team is much different, however, with just five returning players. Jones, the St. Thomas shortstop, said the rematch wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t on the minds of the players.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just took it that they were going to be a tough team,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jones said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really think at all about the final last year, it was just a win we wanted to have.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Newfies, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re always good hitters. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter who they have, they always swing the bats well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Later Monday, Newfoundland faced the Charlottetown Razzy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Roadhouse Fawcetts and lost another heartbreaker, 8-7. St. Thomas, meanwhile, took on the Jarvis Merchants and triumphed 8-0.<\/p>\n

Comeback win for Grey Sox<\/p>\n

The Vancouver Grey Sox, one of the pre-tournament favourites to be crowned Canadian champions, were almost pulled down by the Charlottetown Razzy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Roadhouse Fawcetts on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Fawcetts led 4-1 after three innings but eventually lost 5-4. Vancouver scored twice in the fifth and sixth innings to escape with the victory. Pat Mackintosh played hero for the Grey Sox with a solo home run in the fifth and a two-run shot in the sixth. Steven Langley connected for a solo home run in the second inning for the Fawcetts. Vancouver had nine hits to Charlottetown\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eight. Nick Underhill picked up the win on the rubber and Brian Urquart took the loss.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Prince George Citizen Tuesday, August 29, 2006 Favourites avoid near-upsets by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff Sean O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien had mixed feelings about his home run. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hit barely cleared the centre field fence and helped his St. Thomas Evergreen Centennials avoid an upset at the hands of Newfoundland Impact Signs during Monday afternoon play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}