{"id":923,"date":"2008-05-16T16:57:40","date_gmt":"2008-05-17T00:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=923"},"modified":"2008-05-16T16:57:40","modified_gmt":"2008-05-17T00:57:40","slug":"tnt-ranked-no-1-as-new-season-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=923","title":{"rendered":"TNT ranked No. 1 as new season begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

By DAN SERNOFFSKY
\nDaily News Sportswriter
\nLebanon Daily News<\/p>\n

TNT will be hosting the first Mid-Atlantic Fastpitch Travel League tournament this weekend, a tournament that marks TNT\u2019s first game of the season. The tournament will also mark the first game for TNT as the top-ranked team in the International Softball Congress II rankings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were hoping to be ranked No. 1,\u201d said Irv Lutz, TNT\u2019s general manager, \u201cbecause there\u2019s a lot of good teams out there. Everyone\u2019s been talking about how we\u2019re the team to beat. We\u2019re gonna have a bull\u2019s-eye on our back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rankings were released last week.<\/p>\n

For TNT, this week marks the start of the journey Lutz, and the rest of the team, hope will once again end with a championship. After finishing fourth two years ago, last summer TNT became the first team from the United States to win the prestigious international tournament, posting a 4-2 victory over the California Lumberkings, a team from Bakersfield, in the championship game in Kitchener, Ontario. That victory capped an 8-0 run through the tournament by TNT while wrapping up a 51-5 season that included a sweep of the three MAFTL tournament titles.<\/p>\n

\"TNT<\/p>\n

Completing another MAFTL sweep \u2014 in addition to this weekend\u2019s tournament at Prescott and Stoever\u2019s Dam fields, the league will also hold tournaments in Lancaster County in June and July \u2014 won\u2019t be easy. TNT might be No. 1 heading into the tournament, but four other teams in the 10-team field are ranked in the ISC II top 20, including third-ranked Hoffman Rise, fifth-ranked Keating Fitness, the sixth-ranked NY Knights, and 20th-ranked PA Power.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be easy,\u201d said Lutz. \u201cWe\u2019re anxious to get going, and we\u2019re looking to repeat, but it\u2019s going to be tough. There are a lot of good teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s MAFTL tournament will begin Friday with two games at Prescott. KCC, a team from Maryland, will play Cornerstone Excavating, a Pennsylvania team, at 7 p.m., and PA Power will play Cornerstone at 9.<\/p>\n

\"TNT's<\/p>\n

Saturday will feature a full schedule of games at Prescott and at both Stoever\u2019s Dam fields. TNT opens play at Prescott at 9 a.m., then plays again at 11 before finishing with a game at 3 p.m. The top eight teams from preliminary round play will be seeded for the start of the single-elimination playoffs, which begin at 7 p.m. Saturday. The semifinals will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday, followed by the championship game at noon at Prescott.<\/p>\n

The field for the tournament includes TNT, PA Power, Hoffman Rise, Keating Fitness, Aqua and Cornerstone Excavating, all from Pennsylvania; NY Knights and ADCO Tool Shed from New York; KCC from Maryland; and Peninsula Merchants from Virginia.<\/p>\n

Still, Lutz said, TNT is ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good bunch of guys,\u201d said Lutz. \u201cEveryone\u2019s looking forward to this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

TNT returns pitcher Jeremy Tracy, voted the most valuable pitcher in the ISC II tournament last summer, and infielder Jay Herr, the ISC II tournament MVP who set or tied four tournament records. TNT also added outfielder Rob Loglisci, who was named to the ISC II All-Tournament team while playing with PA Power, and infielder Lance Bower from Hoffman Rise. Lee Lutz will once again serve as the field manager for the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By DAN SERNOFFSKY Daily News Sportswriter Lebanon Daily News TNT will be hosting the first Mid-Atlantic Fastpitch Travel League tournament this weekend, a tournament that marks TNT\u2019s first game of the season. The tournament will also mark the first game for TNT as the top-ranked team in the International Softball Congress II rankings. \u201cWe were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923"}],"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=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}