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Black Sox players Thomas Makea and Penese Iosefo boost Canterbury softball

October 2, 2015

Canterbury, NZ

 

ORIGINAL STORY by Tony Smith

Penese Iosefo, pitching for the Black Sox at the 2013 world championships, will be back on the mound for Albion in the Canterbury softball competition.

 

The Canterbury men's softball premiership should get a big boost this season with New Zealand pitcher Penese Iosefo back on the mound and Black Sox legend Thomas Makea suiting up for Papanui.

Iosefo, part of the pitching staff when the Black Sox won the world championship title in 2013, plans to pitch for Canterbury and New Zealand champions Albion after playing as a hitter last year before locking the Linwood scrum in senior club rugby.

He will add some zip to the Albion attack with player-coach Aiden Cocker also around to add his left-handed pitching.

Albion will be led by Black Sox infielder Josh Harbrow, who had a successful world championships in Canada last winter and was also MVP when Albion won the national inter-club crown.

Papanui Tigers coach Colin Sutherland is also excited to have Makea, a four-time world champion, in his lineup. "Having someone like that is huge," said Sutherland, who now has two Black Sox (Make and Tyron Bartorillo) and six past or present Junior Black Sox at his disposal.

Makea, the Junior Black Sox coach, has settled in Christchurch with his family and will be joined in the Tigers lineup by his son, Reilly Makea, who toured to Prague in the winter with Papanui team-mates Jackson Watt and Callum Bishop as part of the Junior Black Sox squad.

Sutherland said Papanui would also regain two key players, who have been playing overseas, pitcher Ethan Johnston (Japan) and infielder Luke Bowers (Canada).

Johnston will return in November to join stalwart Scott Sutherland and Ben Watts on the Tigers' pitching rota.

Papanui, who won the Spring Shootout pre-season competition last weekend with Jackson Watt  taking the top batter award, have lost former Canterbury Red Sox rep Paul Barker to baseball.

 

The PCU Devils, again coached by Ted Forrester and Paul deLatour, can still call on Black Sox catcher Stephen Ratu and former internationals Gareth Cook and Josh Thomson. 

Cook will miss most of the first half of the season due to knee surgery and PCU have lost former Black Sox star Daniel Milne and ex-New Zealand pitcher Regan Manley.

Ratu will play in the infield, leaving Ihaka Davies and Nopera Stockford to do the catching.

Ryan Britt and Junior Black Sox rep Bailey Hamilton are expected to do the bulk of the pitching with ex-Halswell player Keegan Hilhorst as back-up.

Otago catcher Cam Watts will also transfer to PCU once he completes university commitments in Dunedin.

Halswell will be led by Aaron Collier and former Canterbury representatives Jason Croy and Shane Nalepa have been persuaded to postpone planned retirements.

Canterbury Softball Association operations manager Moira Annandale said the premier competitions will have a new format this year, with the open-slather end-of-season finals weekend concept cast aside.

The top two seeds at the completion of the round-robin competition will now play a three-game finals series.

Annandale, who received administrator of the year at the Softball New Zealand awards, said the CSA hoped it would "incentivise" teams to field strong lineups throughout the club season.

"There was some concern at the premier coaches conference, which mirrored ours, abut the old format," she said. "We wanted to reward consistent performance."

Saturday's opening round draw (all games at Mainland Foundation Ballpark): Papanui v Halswell 1pm; Albion v Halswell 3pm; Papanui v PCU Devils 3pm

 - Stuff

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