I have to say this past weekend was a tough one. Blake was in a four team, round robin softball tournament. With the way it was set up, the championship game should have been played Saturday afternoon... if it went the way it was supposed to.
The tournament started Friday night with our first game. We played a team that had beaten us only one time before. The key to this game was going to be hitting and pitching. The hitting wasn't going to be a problem, after all we had hit well all year. The pitching was what was going to make or break our game. If we threw strikes, we would be okay. This team was one that didn't seem to believe in swinging the bat. They routinely take until they get two strikes and then the coaches let them hit. This only hurts them for the future, but that's my opinion. Turns out the umpire didn't think we threw enough strikes, the other team didn't swing the bat and they ended up scoring some runs. Now to our hitting. It disappeared. We were not used to a pitcher being as slow as this one was; our girls were out on their front foot and for the entire night couldn't seem to wait until the ball got them. That resulted in a lot of short ground balls. We definitely were not the team we could be.
The second game was Saturday morning. We didn't come to play this game. As far as the teams go, they beat us as a team. They hit better, ran better, threw better and committed less errors. We were soundly beat. It seemed as if our girls didn't want to be there or they had better things to do. They didn't have their minds in the game and it showed. by this time, the coaches are getting very frustrated. The team that just beat us was one that we had crushed all year long. What was happening? The girls were lax and didn't seem to matter if they lost. After losing this game, there was no way we were going to take anything but last. Turns out we needed to beat this team to take third.
The last game was... different. The coaches decided to show the girls how they were acting. The coaches didn't tell the girls when to warm up, didn't hit them ground balls, acted like they didn't care. It also got around to the girls that we would be last no matter what happened in this game, the game where we take on a team that we had only beaten once this year, a team that has won the tournament at this point, a team that crushed us the last time we played. It came time for the flip and all of the girls went to home plate. It's not a good sign when the umpire has to ask them if they are ready to play. The umpire also said something about the parents not being happy with their kids effort and that he might have to start throwing some of them out.
The last game of the tournament was maybe the best game the girls have played this year, against the best team in the league, the team that crushed us the last time we played... you know the history. We won the game 14 - 6. How does that happen? We hit the ball better than them, threw the ball better than them, outscored the best team in the league and out pitched them.
One of the brightest spots of the weekend was Blake. As a pitcher, Blake was intense, got better as she pitched more innings, was the workhorse of the pitching staff, and threw enough strikes to win games. As a hitter, I don't remember her not getting on base. That's around ten at bats the whole weekend and she was on base all ten times. As a runner, she was aggressive, slid every time the play was anywhere close to close (got a pretty good strawberry on her knee,) had at least 12 stolen bases, and scored on passed balls. I think her long stride fools a lot of people, but she covers ground pretty quickly. She was the MVP of her team for the tournament and I think many of the girls knew it.
There's one more game for the season, Thursday, against the team that "beat" us Friday night. Maybe the coaches won't care then either!
In the last picture, who is that handsome guy coaching third???
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