{"id":13256,"date":"2011-07-25T22:11:14","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T05:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=13256"},"modified":"2011-07-25T22:13:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T05:13:29","slug":"usa-tops-japan-in-world-cup-of-softball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=13256","title":{"rendered":"USA tops Japan in World Cup of Softball"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13257\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13257\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/m.espn.go.com\/wireless\/story?storyId=6802037&amp;i=FB&amp;w=1ausu&amp;wjb\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/espn-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"espn-150x150\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13257\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13257\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click logo for complete story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote><p>OKLAHOMA CITY &#8212; The United States&#8217; new era of softball stars now have a title of their own.<\/p>\n<p>Replacing the Olympians of America&#8217;s past, Taylor Hoagland hit a two-run home run, Valerie Arioto and Megan Langenfeld had RBI singles and the U.S. beat rival Japan 6-4 Monday night to win its fifth straight World Cup of Softball championship.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Taylor (1-0) retired the first eight batters she faced and carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning, never letting the Americans fall behind after they grabbed a 2-0 lead without needing a hit in the first inning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It feels amazing, just because nobody really knew who this group of girls was,&#8221; said Taylor, who just finished her college career at Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were just kind of underground a little bit. It definitely felt good to come out and still show that USA softball is staying strong.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Many of the familiar faces were missing in this World Cup, with no Olympic veterans on the U.S. roster as the sport won&#8217;t be played on that stage until at least 2020 &#8212; if then.<\/p>\n<p>Jennie Finch and slugger Crystal Bustos are among the veterans who have retired since the 2008 games, and others decided to play pro ball instead of continuing on Team USA.  <a href=\"http:\/\/m.espn.go.com\/wireless\/story?storyId=6802037&#038;i=FB&#038;w=1ausu&#038;wjb\">Click here to read the complete story on ESPN.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OKLAHOMA CITY &#8212; The United States&#8217; new era of softball stars now have a title of their own. Replacing the Olympians of America&#8217;s past, Taylor Hoagland hit a two-run home run, Valerie Arioto and Megan Langenfeld had RBI singles and the U.S. beat rival Japan 6-4 Monday night to win its fifth straight World Cup [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13257,"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":[23,26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tournaments","8":"category-women","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13259,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13256\/revisions\/13259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}