{"id":1191,"date":"2006-08-24T07:39:08","date_gmt":"2006-08-24T15:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2006-08-29T07:41:39","modified_gmt":"2006-08-29T15:41:39","slug":"sr-canadians-aug-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1191","title":{"rendered":"Sr. Canadians – Aug 24"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Prince George Citizen<\/a><\/strong>
\nThursday, August 24, 2006<\/em><\/p>\n

Complete overhaul for national men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastball finalists<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

\nThe team name is the same. But, this edition of Newfoundland Impact Signs does not bear much resemblance to the one that went all the way to the final at the 2005 Canadian senior men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastpitch championship.<\/p>\n

Last year in St. Thomas, Ont., Impact Signs lost 7-1 to the host team in the title game. When Newfoundland begins play Sunday in Prince George at the 2006 nationals, it will have just five returning players on its roster.<\/p>\n

Given that fact, the expectations for Impact Signs are a little different this time around.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have a very young team,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said manager John Hill. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The nucleus of the team are playing in their first national. Basically, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going (to Prince George) to get some experience for our younger guys. Hopefully we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll provide a good level of competition for the opposition teams. I know that there are only eight teams in the tournament, but I can assure you when I look at the names, just because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only eight teams doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that the best ball players are not there. It seems like they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all stacked in nice and neatly, spread out amongst the other seven teams.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The five players back with Impact Signs for the 2006 nationals are pitcher Blair Ezekiel, catcher\/outfielder Shane Fitzpatrick, outfielder Andrew Evans, outfielder Joe Maynard and catcher John Farrell. Players not back in uniform are pitchers Ward Gosse and Matthew Bramwell, centre fielder Stephen Mullaley, shortstop Geoff Evely and outfielder Jason Hill, the son of the Impact Signs manager.<\/p>\n

Gosse and Bramwell both chose to join teams for last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s International Softball Congress (ISC) world championship tournament in Kitchener, Mullaley is with St. Thomas for nationals, and Evely and Jason Hill are on the roster of the Saskatoon Aspen Interior Black Sox, who are among the favourites to claim the title.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153(Evely) and Jason Hill decided to go to Saskatoon so they could play more, play the (senior A) circuit, because the opportunity is not available here in Newfoundland,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d John Hill said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They moved away for development purposes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Impact Signs team is based in St. John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, the city that will play host to next year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nationals. The club\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s participation in this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s event has a definite link to the 2007 tournament.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have two teams next year,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d John Hill said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Some of the guys that are going now are guys that would like an opportunity to play on one of those two teams. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be involved with one of the teams next year, in some capacity. (Playing this year) is a good opportunity for those guys to face some good competition, and not only for me to look at them, but for them to gauge themselves.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Newfoundland has its first nationals game Sunday at 4 p.m. at Spruce City Stadium against the powerhouse Vancouver Grey Sox. The Grey Sox have nine players on their roster whose names can be found on Team Canada\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 35-player list.<\/p>\n

Newfoundland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approach to the Vancouver game will be no different than for any other contest.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to play this one inning at a time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hill said.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re eager and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready to go and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking forward to the trip. We just hope that things go really well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

All eight teams will qualify for playoffs. The top four teams will have two lives to burn once they get there, while the bottom four will be eliminated with just one loss.<\/p>\n

The championship final will be played Sunday, Sept. 3 at 1:30 p.m.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Prince George Citizen Thursday, August 24, 2006 Complete overhaul for national men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastball finalists by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff The team name is the same. But, this edition of Newfoundland Impact Signs does not bear much resemblance to the one that went all the way to the final at the 2005 Canadian senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191"}],"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=1191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}