{"id":806,"date":"2007-08-09T11:52:06","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T19:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=806"},"modified":"2007-08-09T11:53:19","modified_gmt":"2007-08-09T19:53:19","slug":"tavi-set-to-defend-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=806","title":{"rendered":"Tavi set to defend title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.woodstocksentinelreview.com\/Sports\/index.html\"><strong>Reprinted with permission from the Woodstock Sentinel Review.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>By Cory Smith<br \/>\nSports reporter<\/em><\/p>\n<p>TAVISTOCK \u2014 If the St. Marys\/Tavistock Merchants have any hope of defending their ISC II world fastball championship, they\u2019ll have to find the missing ingredients they used to win last year. The Merchants started 2007 ranked No. 1 among ISC II teams, but a slow start in the South Perth Men\u2019s Fastball League and a disappointing finish at the Ontario eliminations last weekend dropped the club to a top-five world ranking. Hardly anything to be ashamed of, but the Merchants will have a bull\u2019s-eye on them all week. \u201cWe expect to be able to compete. With a little luck anything can happen,\u201d Merchants manager Steve Kaufman said. \u201cI\u2019m sure there\u2019s going to be a lot of teams gunning for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>First on that list will be the Kitchener Outlaws, who host the Merchants Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.<br \/>\n\u201cI don\u2019t think expectations are going to be a problem,\u201d Kaufman said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of expectations for many years, going back to Fargo in 2004 when we got second. It was like a relief to win last year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nearly everything went the Merchants\u2019 way in Kitchener last August. Tavistock \u2014 before adding St. Marys to its name this season \u2014 went 7-1 over eight games and outscored its opposition 34-7.  The pitching staff \u2014 which hurled five shutouts, including a Ryan Cummings no-hitter \u2014 is back this year. There are some holes, such as the departure of shortstop Mark McKay, who scored the winning run in the eighth inning of last year\u2019s championship, but Kaufman is confident that players brought in from St. Marys will mix with the returnees to form another formidable mix.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need good pitching and good hitting and timely hitting, that\u2019s what it takes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have the ability to score lots of runs, but when it comes to playoffs and good teams it\u2019s pitching and defence that comes through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reprinted with permission from the Woodstock Sentinel Review. By Cory Smith Sports reporter TAVISTOCK \u2014 If the St. Marys\/Tavistock Merchants have any hope of defending their ISC II world fastball championship, they\u2019ll have to find the missing ingredients they used to win last year. The Merchants started 2007 ranked No. 1 among ISC II teams, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}