{"id":8930,"date":"2011-03-07T18:13:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T02:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=8930"},"modified":"2011-03-07T18:13:44","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T02:13:44","slug":"illegal-pitch-ends-title-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=8930","title":{"rendered":"Illegal pitch ends title bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Click logo for original news story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBy Gary Caffell <\/strong><\/p>\n
\n

A controversial umpiring call may have robbed Giants of a place in the grand final of the Inter City series men’s softball competition.<\/p>\n

Level pegging at 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh innings in their semifinal against star-studded Poneke-Kilbirnie at Hataitai Park on Saturday Giants were a strong chance to force the game into a tiebreaker, having secured two outs and P-K with runners on first and third bases.<\/p>\n

However, all that changed dramatically when Giants pitcher Justin “Chunky” Karaitiana was called by one of the two umpires for an illegal pitch, therefore allowing the P-K runner to cross home base unchallenged and notch a 4-3 victory.<\/p>\n

It was a decision hotly disputed by the Giants camp with experienced campaigner Ritchie Clarke labelled it as “gut wrenching”.<\/p>\n

“You had two umpires out there and only one called it … if it was an illegal pitch why didn’t they both see it,” Clarke said. “It was a hell of a way to end a game, we were all pretty hot I can tell you.”<\/p>\n

Up until that call the match had been a cracker with P-K taking an early 1-0 lead and Giants striking back to nose ahead 2-1. Two runs in the fourth innings put P-K up 3-2 and then Nathan Shannahan smashed a home run for Giants in the sixth to even things up at 3-3.<\/p>\n

“It was a real cliff-hanger, it always had the look of going to a tiebreaker,” Clarke said, adding Giants may actually have had the edge in terms of creating scoring opportunities.<\/p>\n

At the same time, though, he was quick to praise the defensive work of P-K, especially in one situation where Giants had runners on one and three and Junior Black Sox Campbell Gaunt hit a “screamer” down the line only for the P-K first base to make a brilliant stop and take the out, ending that innings in the process.<\/p>\n

“Two runs there could have been enough to pull it off …we were that close,” Clarke said.<\/p>\n

Nathan Shannahan was the standout in what was a superb all-round effort by Giants. Not only did he record a home run, he also managed two excellent bunts in the batting box and was equally effective in the field. Campbell Gaunt, too, starred with consistency in both fielding and batting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gary Caffell A controversial umpiring call may have robbed Giants of a place in the grand final of the Inter City series men’s softball competition. Level pegging at 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh innings in their semifinal against star-studded Poneke-Kilbirnie at Hataitai Park on Saturday Giants were a strong chance to force […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8817,"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":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930","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=8930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8932,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930\/revisions\/8932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}