California Teams to Square Off Saturday at Rose Cup Tournament in Portland, OR

California’s two ISC II teams will be in action in Portland, Oregon this weekend, taking on some of the top teams out west, in the prestigious Rose Cup Tournament. Each team will play three (3) pool play games on Saturday, with the third game of the day against each other.

That head-to-head matchup will be at 4:30pm, west coast time, with bragging rights to California and ISC II rankings at stake. The Lumberkings will have a tougher road to hoe in the pool play portion of the tournament, facing the top ranked team in the tournament, ISC World # 3 ranked Broken Bow Gremlins earlier in the day.

The top 4 teams from each of the 7 team pools will advance to single elimination championship bracket play on Sunday. Two of the top 10 teams in the ISC World rankings are also in Pool B with the Lumberkings and A-1 Taylor Farm, # 3 Broken Bow and # 9 Vancouver Grey Sox.
Two other ISC World ranked teams are in the tournament, the # 7 ranked So Cal Bombers, and the # 15 ranked host, Portland DeMarini. Portland figures to move up in the next set of rankings after a third place finish at Red Rock, and taking 3 of 4 games against # 9 Vancouver in Vancouver recently.

A number of top USA players will be MIA in Portland, due to the World Cup tournament this week and weekend in Prague, Czech Republic, including Nate Devine of the Bombers and Tim Hunt of the Lumberkings. Others, such as pitchers USA pitchers Sonny Perkins, Travis Price and Terry Luster have usually surfaced at Rose Cup, but will not be able to play this year. Though Price is now with Minnesota for ISC World play in 2007, he grew up not far from Portland, in Victoria, B.C.

The Lumberkings jumped to # 4 recently, and are the highest ranked USA team, behind three Ontario area teams, the Niagara Snappers, the Elora Brewers, and the Elmira Cubs. The Lumberkings played in their first ISC II Tournament of Champions last summer, as the first-ever team from California. The Lumberkings did well for their first time out, making the playoff round of 24, and advancing to the Round of 12, before falling 2-1 in extra innings to a then unbeaten Kitchener Outlaw team. A-1/Taylor Farms has not played at the ISC II level yet, but took the best of two solid California teams, A-1 Tank and Taylor Farms from last year, and have played well as such highly regarded tournaments as Red Rock in St. George, Utah. A-1/Taylor Farms rose to the #25 ranking in the June 15 ISC II rankings.

SATURDAY JUNE 23, 2007 SCHEDULE:

Pool A

SoCal Bombers
Portland DeMarini
C-9 (Victoria)
Larry Miller Hogs (UT)
Romie Angels (CA)
Team Yakima (WA)
AA Riteway (OR)

Pool B

Broken Bow Gremlins (NY)
Vancouver Grey Sox (BC)
CR/Adidas (OR)
California LumberKings
A-1/Taylor (CA)

Mock Ford (OR)
Cleon’s Auto (WA)

Schedule of Games for the California Lumberings, of Bakersfield & A-1/Taylor Farms, of Salinas, CA

08:30am Mock Ford vs. A-1/Taylor M&W Field
10:30am Broken Bow Gremlins vs. California LumberKings GI Joes Field
12:30pm A-1/Taylor vs. CR Adidas Budweiser Field
12:30pm Mock Ford vs. California LumberKings M&W Field
4:30pm A-1/Taylor vs. California LumberKings M&W Field

The feature game on Saturday figures to be two top 10 ISC World teams, the # 7 ranked So Cal Bombers vs. the # 3 ranked Broken Bow Gremlins, starting at 6:30pm West Coast time.

Scores available at: fastpitchwest.com Saturday and Sunday

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