Winning State on Father’s Day Weekend

What a weekend. It started with an early rise for a 1 hour commute followed by a 1 hour warm up for an 8 am softball game for my daughter. This game was again against that same team the Blue Jays that beat us twice last weekend to win that tournament. Well once again we walked their players with some poor pitching and they won again. We then played another team and though we kind of in the back of our minds wanted to lose to this team playing our girls in the wrong spots we still won it. We wanted to lose so we could face the Blue Jays again that same day when their only pitcher would be tired. It didn’t work out. And we played 2 other teams and won both of those games.

Sunday came and with us again still in the winners bracket we had a late start of 12:30pm. So I enjoyed the early morning with a 10.5 mile run in a new area I had not yet ran through. It was a pretty run with the river running full and the shadows of the morning stretching along the road. I returned home to a couple of fathers day presents of which was a new blender so the kids and I of course made smoothies.

We again headed to the softball field for the rest of the tournament. It was the same as the weekend before with us and those Blue Jays in the winner’s bracket facing each other again. Winner of this first game gets a 2 hour break and then plays for the championship. With it being a double elimination game this first win is critical as the championship game the other team has to beat you twice to win. Last week the Blue Jays won. This week we WON. Yes our girls played like the champs they are. They were batting machines with almost every girl getting hits. The score this time was 9-5 not the normal 1 run differences we had seen in the past. We go on break and the Blue Jays play another game to get a chance to come at us again. And, that is just what they did.

The Blue Jays were back for the Championship game and they had something to prove. For the most part they only have 1 good pitcher and an awesome catcher. They also like to at age 10 cheat. They picked up on our bunting signs and this time tried to play a slow change up pitching girl. This can change the game and when your team is used to a certain speed of pitch for their timing and a slow change up pitcher comes in it can really mess up the batting.

It was sort of working for them as our bats were flying to fast and when we did get a hit it was to the infield and they put us out at first. They were up on us and winning this game 3-7. We were thinking we are going to the second game but we were home team and got one more at bat. Time on the game had expired and we had to bat and get 5 runs to win or play the second game.

We got a couple runs in and had girls on 2nd and 3rd base with 2 outs in this inning. Things are not looking too good. My daughter is up to bat and she has been in a little bit of a slump and is not the top batter on the team, though she does okay. So now the pressure is on though and what does she do but hits a double bringing in the tying run. WOOHOO. Our next girl gets up and is thrown out at 1st. We are going into extra innings. They take the bat and we put them out with a 3 up and 3 outs. We come up to bat and in a bad running move get tagged out but that was our first runner and the batter made it to 2nd base so we still have a runner on and 2 more outs. Our next gal gets a hit and brings in the winning run. We showed those Blue Jays and we are State Champions as this was the State Tournament.

What a great father’s day.