{"id":31976,"date":"2018-01-30T12:07:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T20:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=31976"},"modified":"2018-01-30T12:07:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T20:07:21","slug":"three-new-zealand-softball-reps-from-a-city-with-no-premier-team-nz-jr-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=31976","title":{"rendered":"Three New Zealand softball reps from a city with no premier team  (NZ Jr. Men)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i.stuff.co.nz\/dominion-post\/sport\/100995938\/three-nz-softball-reps-from-a-city-with-no-premier-team\">From Stuff.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re no Jamaican bobsled team but three Junior Black Sox from a city without a\u00a0premier\u00a0softball team does seem curious.<\/p>\n<p>Upper Hutt trio<strong> Tyrell\u00a0Packer<\/strong>, 17,\u00a0<strong>Kereama\u00a0Watene-Te Hau<\/strong>, 17, and <strong>Jared Gillard<\/strong>, 18, have been\u00a0selected\u00a0to represent New\u00a0Zealand\u00a0in July at the \u00a0World Under-19 Men&#8217;s\u00a0Softball\u00a0Championships in Canada.<\/p>\n<p>All three compete in the premier Intercity and Hutt Valley senior competitions for Lower Hutt clubs with Packer playing for Hutt Valley Marist, while Watene-Te Hau and\u00a0Gillard play for Hutt Valley Dodgers.\u00a0Upper Hutt has not had a team in Wellington&#8217;s top-flight competitions for some years.<\/p>\n<p>Lower Hutt, which has long been a\u00a0softball\u00a0powerhouse, has a single representative\u00a0in the Junior Black Sox;\u00a0the Dodgers&#8217;\u00a0Brad Carson, 17.<\/p>\n<p>Packer was pleased to have been selected and was looking forward to playing in an international level competition. The outfielder comes from a strong softball\u00a0background and was proud to continue carrying the family mantle.<\/p>\n<p>His dad, Geoff,\u00a0is a former Hutt Valley rep and plays in the same team with his son at Marist while grandparents Phil and Anne, are Hutt Valley softball stalwarts. Phil\u00a0played for the Combined Services team and was later an umpire, while Anne was a top-level scorer and has been heavily involved in\u00a0club-level administration.<\/p>\n<p>Packer and his teammates will be busy\u00a0over the next few months manning barbecues and organising raffles to raise\u00a0$7500 each to make it to Canada.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/dominion-post\/sport\/100995938\/three-nz-softball-reps-from-a-city-with-no-premier-team\">Click to continue reading at Stuff.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Stuff.co.nz They&#8217;re no Jamaican bobsled team but three Junior Black Sox from a city without a\u00a0premier\u00a0softball team does seem curious. Upper Hutt trio Tyrell\u00a0Packer, 17,\u00a0Kereama\u00a0Watene-Te Hau, 17, and Jared Gillard, 18, have been\u00a0selected\u00a0to represent New\u00a0Zealand\u00a0in July at the \u00a0World Under-19 Men&#8217;s\u00a0Softball\u00a0Championships in Canada. All three compete in the premier Intercity and Hutt Valley senior [&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":[28,35,82,27],"tags":[859,401],"class_list":{"0":"post-31976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured","7":"category-oceania","8":"category-wbsc","9":"category-youth","10":"tag-nzjuniorblacksox","11":"tag-softballnewzealand","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31976","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=31976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31977,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31976\/revisions\/31977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}