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USA Jr. Men – Training Camp in SLC, UT

Thursday, July 12th, 2007

The USA Softball Jr. Men’s National Team started their day training camp in Salt Lake City with a win and a tie. They opened up the first game scoring 11 runs in bottom of the first inning against Sheriff’s of Pleasant Grove, UT. Nick cole lead off the game with a home run and added two other hits and three rbi’s. Team USA collected 13 hits. Robbie Black of Spanish Fork, UT, JT Weststeyn of St. Louis, MO and Robert Reder of Aurora, IL collected two hits each.

Jordan Talbert of Pattonburg, MO picked up the win giving up 2 hits, walking seven with 5 strike outs.

In the second game, Team USA fell behind 4-1 before scoring 2 in the sixth and one in the 7th to tie the game that finished in a 4-4 tie. Nick Cole again lead off the game with a home run for the first USA score. In the 6th, Chris Norris of Spanish Fork, UT lead off with his second of three hits and scored. In the 7th, Norris singled with two outs and nobody on and scored on a two-out, two strike triple by Nick Cole.
James Hartman of Sioux Falls, SD pitched the distance for Team USA. He allowed 9 hits while striking out 7.

Team USA plays two more games on Thursday.

Thanks to Head Coach Tim Lyon for this report.

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Team USA – American Challenge Series

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

The men’s national team is playing in the American Challenge Series in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, starting on Friday, July 13, and will include a game or games on ESPN.

Fri., July 13
1:00 p.m. Japan vs. Argentina
7:00 p.m. Venezuela vs. Japan
9:30 p.m. USA vs. Argentina

Sat., July 14
12:00 p.m. Venezuela vs. Argentina
3:00 p.m. USA vs. Japan
9:00 p.m. USA vs. Venezuela

Sun., July 15
11:30 p.m. #3 Seed vs. #4 Seed
2:30 p.m. #1 Seed vs. #2 Seed

Thanks to John Nuanez for sending along the schedule of games.

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USA National Team finishes second in World Cup

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

From

Editor’s note: The following story appears in the June 2007 issue of The Inside Pitch, written by Bill Plummer. For the complete issue, available online in PDF format, click link below to the jump.

Lose to Japan 2-0 in final

Prague, CZ — There is light at the end of the tunnel for the USA Men’s National Team, which finished second in the first ISF World Cup here June 16-25. Despite losing to Japan in the championship game, 2-0, the USA National Team compiled an overall 8-3 record and left USA Head Coach Pete Turner optimistic about the team’s future. “I believe we accomplished a great deal on this trip,”Turner said.”We took a young team with six new layers and each of those players made an impact. Although we did not meet our objective (finishing first), we did beat every team in the tournament and proved that our selection process is working.”

Turner, who was named USA National Team coach in 2001, was also pleased with what the players did off he field as well as between the white lines. “Overall, I was pleased with the professional manner in which the players came together and how they conducted themselves on and off the field. As we move forward, we will need to shore-up our defense. Therefore, we have planned three much needed practices in Oklahoma City to fix what needs to be fixed. Once we get to know each others range, strengths and weaknesses we will accomplish our goals.” The USA, and two of the teams that competed in Prague, Venezuela and Japan, plus Argentina will compete in the KFC American Challenge Series at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium, July 12-16.

The USA Men’s Team won its first seven games in a row in the round robin before losing to Venezuela, 6-5, in its last game of the round robin. Against Venezuela, the USA fell behind early 6-1 before almost winning the game with a late rally. Even when it got behind in four games, and winning two, the USA fought back with determination and desire as they prepare for the ISF World Championship in 2009. The USA batted .328 as a team, hitting 20 homers.

The USA’s Chris DeLarwelle (Appleton, Wisc.), who alternated between first base and designated hitter, was named the World Cup’s MVP and teammate Frank DeGroat led the event in homers (five). DeLarwelle batted .454 (15-for-33), hit four homers. and drove in a team high 11 ruffs. The top hiter was HirakaYokoyama of Japan (14-for-25, .560) with Kunihiko Iida of Japan (2-0) the top pitcher, allowing one earned run in 14 innings. Travis Price of the USA was 4-1.

Final standings:

Japan
USA
Venezuela
DeMo EHS (Netherlands)
Czech Republic
Santa Isabel Zaragoza (Spain)
Denmark, Prague Stars
Halcones Tenerife (Spain).

Former USA National Team pitcher Doug Gillis played for fourth place finisher DeMo EHS of the Netherlands and compiled a 2-2 record in 19 1/3 innings.

(more…)

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The Next Generation

Saturday, July 7th, 2007

Editor’s note: The story below, about a team from my home state of Michigan struck a chord with me, reminding me of the team that I play for, the So Cal Hustlers, started by Bobby Cole. Take away the four veterans, of which I am one, and it’s made up of 20-something players, whose enthusiasm for the game shines brightly. Two of them, Matt and Casey have fathers on the team, Doug and Ken. I’ve played again Doug and Ken for years, finally getting to call them teammates after all these years. Along with our senior statesman “Papa Joe” Salcido, the four of us skew the median age, adding 200 years to the mix. But make no mistake, the Hustlers are a young team, whose excitement about the game of fastpitch is clearly evident. It is contagious. The game will be just fine with this next generation. It just needs people like Rob Collamer (see story below) and others like many of you to introduce them to the game…..

From OurMidland.com:

Men’s fastpitch making inroads with next generation
By Greg Chalfin

More than 25 years ago, Rob Collamer got his start in fastpitch softball on Gary Wilson’s Great Lakes Photo team.

“He started a team so his boys could play on it,” Collamer said. “I was friends with his boys.”

Now, Collamer’s doing the same for his son Dustin and some of his friends through the newly formed Jr. Metros/Gillies team.

“I played fastpitch my whole life in the area,” Collamer said. “It was kind of tough for me to break in, so I kind of thought I’d start it for them.”

Alongside 11 players between the ages of 19 and 21, Collamer acts as player-coach in hopes of attracting more younger players to fastpitch softball. The team hasn’t had much success yet â€” one win in 20 games â€” but they’re playing tough competition to improve.

Dustin Collamer-Rowe â€” a 2006 graduate of Bullock Creek â€” played on his dad’s team last year and helped him recruit some of his friends from Bullock Creek to the team.

“It was a cool idea,” Dustin said. “I didn’t know how many kids they were going to be able to get at first, but I was able to help him out.”

But most of the team’s players were standout football players for the Lancers, and Dustin said the transition hasn’t been easy.

“There’s no contact in softball, but I have fun,” Dustin said. “There’s a lot of cool guys that we play against.”

Six of the team’s players, including Dustin, will play at a 19-and-under tournament in Frankenmuth over the weekend before returning to play for the Jr. Metros next week.

Fastpitch softball in the area appeared to be declining in recent years in favor of modified softball, but the pendulum between the two styles may be swinging back toward fastpitch with teams like Jr. Metros surfacing. Collamer said he found some of his current players in local modified leagues, and he’s happy to provide young players the opportunity to play fastpitch.

“The biggest reason I did this was I’m not a big fan of slowpitch or modified,” Collamer said. “And when I’m done playing, I’d like to come down and watch some fastpitch.”

(more…)

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California Lumberkings Jump to # 2 Spot in ISC II Rankings

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Snappers head into ToC as top seed followed by Lumberkings & Tavistock

July 6, 2007 â€“ The Niagara Snappers will go in the ISC II Tournament of Champions as the unanimous top seed with the release of the final ISC II rankings today.

The Snappers will try to become the first top-ranked ISC II team to win the ToC.

Moving up two spots to #2 are the California LumberKings, who played ISC heavyweights Broken Bow Gremlins and SoCal Bombers extremely tough in Portland and will be in Aurora, IL next weekend.

Rounding out the top seven who will head up the seven pools at the ToC are the defending champion Tavistock Merchants, Cutro Professional Inspections, Palermo Athletics, Ottawa Team Easton Thunder and Elora Wellington Brewers.

The top 10 are as follows with the previous periodâ€™s ranking in brackets:

1. (1) Niagara, ON Snappers
2. (4) Bakersfield, CA Lumberkings
3. (5) Tavistock, ON Merchants
4. (8) Oswego, NY Cutro Professional Inspections
5. (6) Palermo, ON Athletics
6. (9) Ottawa, ON Team Easton Thunder
7. (2) Elora, ON Wellington Brewers
8. (7) Perkasie, PA Rise
9. (12) Port Elgin, ON Blue Devils
10. (10) South Lebanon, PA TNT

To see the full list, including how each committee member ranked the teams, please see the ISC II section of the ISC website at www.iscfastpitch.com.

The rankings will form the basis for seeding teams in the sixth annual ISC II Tournament of Champions which will be played August 14-18 at Budd Park in Kitchener and Kinsmen Park in Cambridge, Ontario. The ToC will feature 35 teams playing a four-game round robin schedule in seven pools of five teams each. The top three teams from each pool along with three wildcards will advance to a single elimination playoff bracket.

With the rankings complete, look for the schedule to be released next week.

For more information, please contact:

Blair Setford
ISC II Commissioner
Email: blairjs(at)rogers.com

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Postscript on Bombers’ win at Monkton

Friday, July 6th, 2007

From Cesar Rodriguez, So Cal Bombers:

It was one of the best tournaments weâ€™ve played in, in terms of competition and environment. Brian Baillie and the people of Monkton did an outstanding job and the atmosphere was outstanding.

The team played pretty well. We came out of the gate well against Aspen and were able to take advantage of some mistakes and timely hitting to win the first game. Lucas Mata threw well and kept the Saskatoon team off balance all day. In the second game against Patsyâ€™s, we got smoked. No EXCUSES, hear that critics! We played poorly and had poor focus at the plate. When you combine that with a top pitcher like Muizy and the bats and defense of the Patsyâ€™s, youâ€™re going to get your butt kicked; and we did. What you hope to do is regroup and play better the next one. We did.

We went on to beat the Twins (facing Koert and Scott), the Farm (Gervasutti and Gareau), the Gremlins (Kirkpatrick), and the Twins again (Martin). No slouches in any of those games. Our pitching was outstanding, we used Peeples, Whitten and Mata in our first game against the Twins, Mata against both the Farm and the Gremlins, and Whitten threw the final. Great performances. We got clutch hitting and did many of the little things we need to do to win.

Now Iâ€™ve been criticized before for stressing the process but I really believe this; Monktonâ€™s win was satisfying but only because it legitimized us – to ourselves. We have a chance to win and beat good teams â€“ weâ€™ve been saying it and now we can start to believe we have that ability. We still have a lot of work to do and we know it. Winning at the end of June is great and we feel good about it but it isnâ€™t August yet and we have to keep working hard on the process of getting better and that means improving some of the little things to be the best we can be.

Next weekend we travel to the Boys of Summer, and as many know weâ€™re without Mata and Ghostkeeper (this past weekend we were without Potskin and Parra) but who is with us or not is really irrelevant. Our job is to continue to work on our overall game; get our at bats in against good pitching; our innings in against good hitters; and continue to work on plays and situations. If we win the tournament again, it will simply be another bonus.

Iâ€™m happy with our progress to this point, Monkton was a great confirmation for us and Rob, the Trejoâ€™s and I are very proud of our club, but the Worldâ€™s are still about six weeks away and thereâ€™s lots of work to do. See you at the parkâ€¦â€¦.

C-Rod

So Cal Bombers

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Jarvis Merchants Team Website

Thursday, July 5th, 2007

From:

The Jarvis Merchants have rolled out their new team website.

Editor’s notes: Jarvis is located in Ontario, Canada, with the Merchants currently ranked #15 in the June 21, 2007 ISC World rankings. That puts them just behind current #13 Portland and #14 Albaugh IA, and just ahead of #16 Quad City Sox and #17 Pueblo Bandits, CO.

The Merchants recently competed in the Monkton World Fastball Invitational, as the only non-top 10 team in the field and competed very well. The Merchants pitching staff is the talented trio of Brian Urquhart, Scott Wagar and Andrew Phibbs. Phibbs’ brother Allan is the catcher for the team. Top hitters for the Merchants thus far in the season are Pat Graham (.384) and Chris Staats (.378). Both have on-base percentages above .400. Brad Robinson leads the team in home runs with 6, while Pat Graham and Billy Simmons lead in hits. Graham and Robinson also leads in RBI.

We had a chance to see Scott Waggar pitch at the AAU International tournament in 2007, where he pitched very well, coming within one out of knocking off the ISC # 4 ranked Kitchener Hallman Twins. Ironically, in that game, it was Rino Dambrosio who got the game winner for the Twins. Dambrosio is a member of the Merchants regular 2007 roster, but was playing at the AAU with his old club, the Hallman Twins.

Be sure to visit their stats page, which includes box scores from all 27 games played to date, as well as individual player stats.

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Broken Bow 3-0 on Saturday at Rose Cup

Sunday, June 24th, 2007

From the Broken Bow team website, some details on Broken Bow’s wins Saturday at the Rose Cup tournament in Portland, Oregon:

Andrew Kirkpatrick struck out 13 and allowed 4 hits as the Broken Bow Gremlins opened the 2007 season with a 4-1 win over the California Lumberkings, Jarrad Martin was 3×3 with an rbi for the Gremlins

Broken Bow Gremlins 1 Vancouver Grey Sox 0

This one was a classic pitching duel, Nick Undrehill for Vancouver and Jeremy Manley for Broken Bow. Underhill finished with 10 k’s 3 hitter and Manley 11 with a no hitter. The game was scoreless until the seventh when Frank Basurto had an infield single and Pat Shannon scored from second on some heads up baserunning. Vancouver Grey Sox shortstop Rob Giesbrecht fielded Basurto’s ball up the middle but did not attempt to throw Basurto out, instead he threw behind Shannon who had rounded third but instead of stopping Pat scampered home with the winning run.

Broken Bow Gremlins 5 SoCal Bombers 1

The Gremlins got 4 runs in the top of the eighth inning, 3 on a home run by catcher Pat Shannon to upend the SoCal Bombers 5-1. The Gremlins scored a run in the top of the first but could not get to Bomber pitcher Sean Whitten (15 k’s) until the first extra inning The Bombers got a run in the bottom of the seventh inning to take the game to extra innings. Andrew Kirkpatrick (11 k’s) and Jeremy Manley (6 k’s) combined for a 7 hitter. Broken Bow escaped disaster as runner Bob Rosthenhausler did not tag up on Nathan Nukunuku’s long fly ball to center field, but a Jarrad Martin single sandwiched between a Moises Duran walk scored Rosthenhausler, then came Shannon’s blast. Summary for the day was good pitching, not so good hitting. First game on possibly rainy Sunday at 10:30am.

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Lumberkings Top A-1-Taylor Farms in the Battle for California at Rose Cup

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007

See story at our ISC II blog, “The Deuce”.

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New ISC World Rankings – June 21

Friday, June 22nd, 2007

From ISCfastpitch.com:

1. Orillia Quaker Riversharks
2. Patsy’s
3. Broken Bow Gremlins
4. Kitchener Hallman Twins
5. The Farm
6. MinnDak Millers
7. So Cal Bombers
8. Circle Tap
9. Aspen Interiors
10. Vancouver Grey Sox
11. Townline
12. Midland Explorers
13. Portland/Demarini
14. Albaugh, Inc.
15. Jarvis
16. Quad City Sox
17. Pueblo Bandits
18. Bloomington Stix
19. Dolan & Murphy
20. Innerkip
21. St. Thomas Centennials
22. Ashland Mets
23. Elkland
24. Plangger Furniture
25. Thomson Area Merch.
26. Midwest Stampede

As noted by Al Doran at :

To see the full list, including how each committee member ranked the teams, please see the Tournament section of the ISC website at www.iscfastpitch.com.

Watch for the results of a number of weekend tournaments coming up, including a number of World Tournament qualifiers. Its the results of these tournaments that give
ammunition to the rankers to vote on the teams.

The rankings will form the basis for seeding teams in the annual ISC World Tournament which will be played August 10-18 at Peter Hallman Ballyard in Kitchener, Ontario.

Al Doran
ISC Web Site Director
http://www.iscfastpitch.com/

Editor’s notes:

“Big 5” is not a sporting goods store. Well, at least not in this context. The “Big 5”, Orillia, Patsys, Broken Bow, Hallman and the Farm stay put right where they were in the June 5 rankings. Monkton will be a great showcase — perhaps the one voters pay the most attention to, before the final seeding for the ISC World Tournament. Who gets hot that weekend could determine how these 5 get seeded..

Not a lot of movement – my quick review shows the MinnDak Millers of Minnesota the biggest mover – jumping 4 spots from # 10 to #6. Winning the Albaugh tournament was a good win, and fresh in the voter’s minds, I would think. From there, it’s a pretty big hill to climb, to get past the top 5 who kept their slots from the last set of rankings.

Aspen Interiors the biggest drop, 3 slots from # 6 to #9, though I confess I haven’t tracked their season to explain why. Perhaps just where they landed with a few others moving up on the strength of one tournament or another.

The Midland Explorers moved up 2 slots from #14 to #12, trading spots with Albaugh. I thought the win over # 4 Kitchener Hallman Twins in the Explorer’s tournament in June might bump them into the top 10, but it’s a crowded house. (They won a 13-7 slugfest in the championship game against Kitchener).

More parity among the top teams than we’ve seen in a while, perhaps a result of the PRAWN rule taking effect, so not a lot of (that ought to get me some emails from those who don’t like that rule). More teams with a legitimate chance of making it to the final than in recent years, I think. The last couple years, it seemed like a two or at best, three team race. How far down the list do you think it goes this year, i.e. how many of these teams have a legitimate chance ? ?(translation: you’re betting with your own money 😉 7? 8? 9? With the caveat, of course “if they got hot”. Or do you think it’s still a win, place and show field of 3-4 teams?

The So Cal Bombers stay right at # 7, winning the Red Rock tournament, but getting upset off by Larry Miller UT with Cody Thomson on the mound. The Bombers fared well enough at their own tournament in May, to hold their spot. They did knock off # 13 Portland again (also in Red Rock), but were beaten 10-2 by a lower ranked # 8 Circle Tap.

Vancouver drops from # 9 to #10, while Portland moves up from #15 to #13. I would have thought the ranking committee would pay more attention to the fact that Portland took 3 of 4 from Vancouver in Vancouver. And don’t take anything away from Vancouver, who is solid, but I thought Portland would move up above # 13. Vancouver for its part, was impressive in Palm Springs, shutting out #17 Pueblo and beating a higher ranked #8 Circle Tap in the final. The Rose Cup tournament this weekend should give us a better look at just where Vancouver and Portland stand with each other. Expect to see those two battling late in the day on Sunday, though they both have to get past higher ranked Broken Bow.

Quad City jumped from # 19 to #16. Any of our midwest readers know what might have sparked that? For the rest of the pack, just a slot or two up or down, here and there.

And so the dance continues, musical chairs, until the Big Show in August…….

Comments anyone? send them to jim (at) fastpitchwest.com

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