{"id":21422,"date":"2013-07-09T14:11:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-09T21:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=21422"},"modified":"2013-07-09T14:11:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T21:11:41","slug":"father-son-excited-to-play-tourney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=21422","title":{"rendered":"Father, son excited to play tourney"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Click<\/a>
Click for complete story at The Star Phoenix.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BY DANIEL NUGENT-BOWMAN, THE STARPHOENIX<\/em><\/p>\n

Garage doors, washers and dryers are known as the favourite shooting targets of aspiring hockey players.<\/p>\n

However, when it comes to softball, it’s lawns and windows that bear the brunt of the damage.<\/p>\n

Just ask Dave Mc-Cullough.<\/p>\n

The coach of the Saskatchewan under-21 men’s softball team is the father of three pitchers – one of whom, Darren, is an ace hurler on his club.<\/p>\n

Dave and his wife Barb had to replace “a lot of windows … a lot,” over the years at their Montgomery-area house in the southwest corner of the city.<\/p>\n

As for the lawn, Dave has all but given up.<\/p>\n

There were two mounds – one for Darren and older brother Devon and another for daughter Brielle, the youngest.<\/p>\n

As the children got older, the distances to home plate increased and a new spot would get trampled.<\/p>\n

“The backyard took a beating, I’ll put it that way,” Dave said ahead of Saskatchewan’s first game of the international championship at Bob Van Impe Stadium against Newfoundland on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. “You should see the wear spots across my lawn. From the pitching mound to home plate, there are just wear marks.”<\/p>\n

Although Devon, Darren and Brielle have made property maintenance challenging for Dave, he insists he wouldn’t have it any other way.<\/p>\n

Fuelled by backyard training, Darren, 20, is one of the leaders on Team Saskatchewan. Dave expects his son to be a key contributor with the bat and with his arm.<\/p>\n

So Darren sought some advice from this older brother.<\/p>\n

Devon, 22, pitched at the under-19 tournament before the event changed to an under-21 affair.<\/p>\n

He now throws for the Saskatoon Diamondbacks, the fifth-best club team in the world as ranked by the International Softball Congress. “When you’re pitching, you’ve got to hit your spots. That’s the main thing,” Darren said. “He said to just relax, hit your spots and let your defence work for you.”<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan knows it will be in tough in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Newfoundland is known as a plucky up-and-comer, while another pool rival, Argentina, has Huemul Mata Carabajal, a player regarded as one of the best in the world for his age.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the ledger, the Ontario and Alberta squads boast Team Canada pitchers Michael Legace-Roote and Steven Normand. The two hurlers are the expected starters<\/p>\n

in the tournament-opening game Tuesday at 11 a.m. Saskatchewan has what Dave calls a versatile outfit, highlighted by Anthony Climenhaga, Alex Fehr, Eric Tarnowski and Joel Hamilton.<\/p>\n

The goal is to come in the top two in the pool heading into the medal round and then leave the tournament with something around their necks.<\/p>\n

According to Darren, it’s a realistic objective, especially if they get their bats going.<\/p>\n

“We’re feeling pretty confident,” said Darren, who also serves as an outfielder, first baseman and designated hitter. “We have a good group of guys here and we have lots of talent. I think we have a good chance of doing some good things at this tournament.<\/p>\n

“Everybody has a part on this team. If everybody does their part, I think we’ll do just fine.”<\/p>\n

Darren added he is looking<\/p>\n

forward to playing in front of family and friends in an international tournament so close to home. The experience will surely be a little different than in the backyard, where Devon and Darren would force Brielle, now 16, to strap on catcher’s gear – as well has goalie pads in the winter – from the time she was four.<\/p>\n

There were plenty of scuffles, injuries, broken glass and ruined grass as the brothers tried to show off their best stuff.<\/p>\n

As Darren tries to follow in Devon’s footsteps, that’s all a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

“They had a real competition when they were growing up,” Dave said. “They would always play against each other. They always had a bit of a rivalry going and tried to outdo each other. But now they get along really well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY DANIEL NUGENT-BOWMAN, THE STARPHOENIX Garage doors, washers and dryers are known as the favourite shooting targets of aspiring hockey players. However, when it comes to softball, it’s lawns and windows that bear the brunt of the damage. Just ask Dave Mc-Cullough. The coach of the Saskatchewan under-21 men’s softball team is the father of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10254,"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":[5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"category-players","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422","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=21422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21423,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422\/revisions\/21423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}