{"id":1839,"date":"2007-07-08T21:21:54","date_gmt":"2007-07-09T05:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2007-07-08T21:35:58","modified_gmt":"2007-07-09T05:35:58","slug":"pa-merchants-win-va-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=1839","title":{"rendered":"Merchants Win VA Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alsfastball.com\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/images2\/als.fastball.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p><strong>MERCHANTS WIN VA. CLASSIC TITLE WITH 11-4 VICTORY OVER PA. POWER<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>HAMPTON, VA. &#8212; Tournament MVP Bill Hillhouse struck out 13 as the Peninsula Merchants used a five-run fifth inning to break open a close game in route to an 11-4 victory over PA Power in the championship game of the Virginia Classic on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>PA Power held a 3-1 lead after two innings, but the Merchants started coming back with three runs in the bottom of the third as Joby Overstreet doubled in two and eventually scored on a<br \/>\nline out by Mike Chase.  The visitors from Harrisburg, PA tied the game 4-all in the top of the fourth, but the Merchants took a lead for good on a Kelly Dampeer solo home run in the bottom<br \/>\nof the fourth.<\/p>\n<p>The hosts exploded for five runs in the bottom of the fifth as J.T. Ortiz hit a two-run home run which was followed by RBI doubles from Todd Smith and Paul Hall who scored the fifth run on a wild pitch.  Peninsula closed out the game in the bottom of the sixth as Ortiz scored on a  groundout from Joe Hineline to end the game via the seven run-rule.<\/p>\n<p>Hall, Dampeer, Overstreet and Hineline had two hits each for the Merchants (14-5) while Dampeer, Overstreet and Ortiz drove in a pair each.  The Merchants will play at Francis Asbury Park again on July 21-22 against the Virginians from Roanoke.<\/p>\n<p>PENINSULA MERCHANTS 11, PA POWER 4<br \/>\n<strong>Championship Game &#8212; Virginia Classic<\/strong><br \/>\nPA Power        210 100 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 4 6 0<br \/>\nPeninsula       103 151 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 11 13 3<br \/>\nWP: Hillhouse (5-2); LP: Zimmerman.  Standouts: PA, Ranck 2-3 (double, RBI, run), Sander 3-3 (triple, home run, 2 runs, RBI); Merchants, Hall 2-4 (2 runs, RBI, double, stolen base), Dampeer<br \/>\n2-3 (2 runs, 2RBIs, home run), Overstreet 2-4 (2 runs, 2RBIs, double), Ortiz 1-2 (2 runs, 2RBIs, home run), J. Hineline 2-3 (run, RBI, double), Hillhouse 13 strikeouts.  Record: Peninsula 14-5.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunday Scores<\/strong><br \/>\nGP Gwaltney 3, Sketchers 1 (Sketchers 4th place)<br \/>\nPA Power 3, GP Gwaltney 2 (GP Gwaltney 3rd place)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From MERCHANTS WIN VA. CLASSIC TITLE WITH 11-4 VICTORY OVER PA. POWER HAMPTON, VA. &#8212; Tournament MVP Bill Hillhouse struck out 13 as the Peninsula Merchants used a five-run fifth inning to break open a close game in route to an 11-4 victory over PA Power in the championship game of the Virginia Classic on [&hellip;]<\/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\/1839"}],"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=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}