{"id":807,"date":"2007-08-09T11:56:42","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T19:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=807"},"modified":"2007-08-09T11:56:42","modified_gmt":"2007-08-09T19:56:42","slug":"reds-ready-for-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=807","title":{"rendered":"Reds ready for action"},"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><strong>By Cory Smith<br \/>\nSports reporter<br \/>\nHICKSON<\/strong> \u2014 While their Oxford County rivals compete under the glaring spotlight of defending champions, the Hickson Reds will have no such distraction.<br \/>\nPrior to the 2007 season, the Reds weren\u2019t even on the ISC II radar. By July 6, the Reds were ranked 29th. It was a modest but important blip on the fastball screen for the Reds as they prepare for the world championships in Kitchener.<br \/>\nOf course, that means the Reds will face the toughest competition in Pool F, beginning Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. against the No. 12 Port Elgin Blue Devils.<br \/>\nThe Reds move on to face the Ashland Merchants in their second game, Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. In their third round-robin game Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., Hickson plays the Ottawa Team Easton, ranked sixth as of July 6.<br \/>\nThe Reds close the prelims with a date against the No. 23 Waterdown Hammer Thursday at 6:30 p.m.<br \/>\nHickson sits in the middle of the Smith\/Egli division of the South Perth Men\u2019s Fastball League, but has fared reasonably well in tournament play thus far.<br \/>\nThe Reds went 3-2 at the Canada East Softball Congress II qualifier in June, outlasting the Ingersoll Crush and Innerkip Orioles of the Tri-County Men\u2019s Fastball League.<br \/>\nTheir biggest highlight was a win over the second-ranked Elora Brewers. Mark VanVliet pitched a strong game to pick up the victory and the Reds hurler will be a main component for the club next week.<br \/>\nLed by hometown manager Al Harmer, the Reds are truly a local team, boasting 13 players from Oxford County. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reprinted with permission from the Woodstock Sentinel Review. By Cory Smith Sports reporter HICKSON \u2014 While their Oxford County rivals compete under the glaring spotlight of defending champions, the Hickson Reds will have no such distraction. Prior to the 2007 season, the Reds weren\u2019t even on the ISC II radar. By July 6, the Reds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807"}],"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=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}