{"id":3702,"date":"2009-09-22T09:42:43","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T16:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=3702"},"modified":"2009-09-23T10:44:10","modified_gmt":"2009-09-23T17:44:10","slug":"the-dower-report-on-nafa-45-world-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=3702","title":{"rendered":"The Dower Report on NAFA 45+ World Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Thanks to Herb Dower for the latest edition of &#8220;The Dower Report&#8221; on the NAFA 45+ World Series:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>CARSON CITY, NV \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Santa Rosa Fastpitch didn&#8217;t stand a chance against the very talented QMax team of  Calgary, Alberta, but despite two lopsided losses to the Canadian team, Santa Rosa captured third place in the Over-45 Division in the NAFA Masters West World Series held here Sept. 18-20 at Centennial Sports Complex.<br \/>\nSanta Rosa opened  Friday night with a 9-3 win over Savala Painting, which recently finished second in the Over-45 Division of the Amateur Softball Association&#8217;s Masters Tournament. Matt Smith pitched the win and Tony Lopez, Tom Dower and Dana Faccini led the way offensively. Lopez collected five straight hits, Dower hit a three-run homer in the first inning and Faccini had two extra base hits.<\/p>\n<p>QMax brought Santa Rosa down to earth Saturday morning as Lanky Johnson pitched a four-hitter in a 9-0 victory. Lopez held the Alberta team at bay for three innings as Santa Rosa trailed only 1-0, but QMax erupted for five runs in the fourth and three in the fifth to put the game away. <\/p>\n<p>Lopez continued his hot hitting with a pair of singles, giving him seven consecutive hits to start the tournament. Dana Faccini added a double and Gary Dower had a single.<\/p>\n<p>Santa Rosa then lost 6-3 to the Tulsa Gray Sox, with Gary Dower taking the loss. Lopez doubled in his first at-bat for his eighth straight hit and Tom Dower and Dana Faccini each had two hits.<\/p>\n<p>In the first game of the playoffs, Santa Rosa took on the No. 4 seeded Ladner Masters of British Columbia and rallied for an eight-inning 9-6 victory behind Matt Smith (2-0).<\/p>\n<p>Santa Rosa led 3-1 after three innings, but Ladner came back to take a 5-3 lead going into the seventh inning.<br \/>\nGary Dower singled to start the Santa Rosa comeback, Lopez was hit by a pitch, Tom Dower singled across a run to make it 5-4, and Tim Grund tripled to right to drive in two runs to give Santa Rosa a 6-5 lead. Grund was left stranded on third.<\/p>\n<p>In the bottom of the seventh, Kelly Wenstrom singled for Ladner&#8217;s, Jim Bruce lined out to left, and Sammy Aldridge walked. Troy Grow followed with an RBI single to tie the game at 6-6, but Aldridge, trying to advance to third, fell down and was eventually tagged out. Keven MacDonald flied out to left to end the inning.<\/p>\n<p>In the eighth, Gary Dower ignited the game-winning rally with a two-out bunt single, Lopez doubled, and Tom Dower launched his second three-run home run of the tournament to give Santa Rosa its 9-6 victory.<\/p>\n<p>QMax made short work of Santa Rosa in Sunday&#8217;s second game pounding out 13 hits in the first two innings off Matt Smith, including a three-run homer by Tony Davis. Tony Lopez, Tom Dower, Tim Grund and Rick Kane got hits for Santa Rosa. In two games, the Alberta powerhouse outscored Santa Rosa 22-1, and Santa Rosa did not have to face Alberta&#8217;s best, pitching legend Rob Scheller.<\/p>\n<p>Three members of the Santa Rosa team received All-World honors. Lopez, who hit .625 (10 for 16) and scored seven runs; Tom Dower, who hit .533 (8 for 15) and had two home runs and seven RBI; and Grund, who was 5 for 14 (.357). It was the second year in a row that Dower received All-World honors, earning it last year while playing for Fat City, when he also hit two home runs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to Herb Dower for the latest edition of &#8220;The Dower Report&#8221; on the NAFA 45+ World Series: CARSON CITY, NV \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Santa Rosa Fastpitch didn&#8217;t stand a chance against the very talented QMax team of Calgary, Alberta, but despite two lopsided losses to the Canadian team, Santa Rosa captured third place in the Over-45 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,2,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702"}],"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=3702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}