{"id":30651,"date":"2017-02-21T13:34:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T21:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=30651"},"modified":"2017-02-21T13:56:09","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T21:56:09","slug":"three-titles-in-a-row-for-auckland-mens-and-womens-softball-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=30651","title":{"rendered":"Three titles in a row for Auckland men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s softball teams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/sport\/other-sports\/89567378\/finalists-confirmed-at-national-softball-tournament\" target=\"_blank\">By Tony Smith from Stuff.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finalists Confirmed at National Softball Tournament (New Zealand)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Auckland remains the power base of New Zealand softball with the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s teams locking up their third consecutive national titles.<\/p>\n<p>Venita Hokai&#8217;s women&#8217;s side produced a big inning to snare a 5-2 comeback victory over Wellington in the National Fastpitch Championship finale at Lower Hutt&#8217;s Fraser Park on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The Auckland men &#8211; led by Black Sox stalwart Nathan Nukunuku &#8211; followed up with a 1-0 win against Wellington.<\/p>\n<p>Auckland were well worth their win, collecting six safe hits to Wellington&#8217;s three, but could only get one runner across the plate.<\/p>\n<p>Black Sox catcher Zane van Lieshout, the tournament&#8217;s leading batter going into the final day, slugged  a double in the top of the second inning and slid home to score after a Wellington outfielder lost sight of the ball in the sun.<\/p>\n<p>Japanese pitcher Kenta Okazaki was again in commanding form on the mound, allowing just two safe hits as he racked up eight strikeouts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/sport\/other-sports\/89567378\/finalists-confirmed-at-national-softball-tournament\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to continue reading at stuff.co.nz.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Tony Smith from Stuff.co.nz Finalists Confirmed at National Softball Tournament (New Zealand) Auckland remains the power base of New Zealand softball with the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s teams locking up their third consecutive national titles. Venita Hokai&#8217;s women&#8217;s side produced a big inning to snare a 5-2 comeback victory over Wellington in the National Fastpitch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[28,35,23],"tags":[653,654],"class_list":{"0":"post-30651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured","7":"category-oceania","8":"category-tournaments","9":"tag-aucklandfastball","10":"tag-nznationals","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30651","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=30651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30653,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30651\/revisions\/30653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}