All-Star Drama

(Just so you know, this post took me two days to do. It started Friday night, and ran into Saturday afternoon. You understand.)









Wow. Just wow. I'm completely exhausted, and I didn't even do anything. We're in the middle of our state all-star tournament for Tori's softball team. Tori made the all-star team, (of course, why wouldn't she?) and a couple of the coaches from the rec-league, including myself are coaching the all-star team. We won our first game of the double elimination tournament last night 9-4. The game was closer than it sounds, though, since we put up 4 runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. (These games only go six innings, by the way.) Tori played really well. She earned a spot at second base a couple weeks ago, and she ain't letting go of the position. She had about 5 or 6 balls hit to her last night and gobbled them all up. She even had a play where the runner on first was stealing, the catcher's throw was in the dirt, the shortstop missed it, and Tori scooped up the ball from behind second base and tagged the runner out as the she turned toward third after she saw the ball get past the shortstop. That ended the inning.







Anyway, back to the game tonight. Whoever won the game tonight earned a spot in the championship game tomorrow morning. And whoever lost the game had to play another game tonight, and another game early tomorrow morning to work their way out of the loser's bracket to make it to the championship. So needless to say, we really wanted to win this game. We won the coin toss (that's right, there's a coin toss to determine Home and Visitor. C'mon, work with me, it's 12 year old girl's softball.), and Yay! We're the home team. Since our ace pitcher pitched the game last night, we had our number 2 pitcher, Fallon, on the mound tonight. (I guess it's not technically called a mound in softball. They call it a 'circle' since there's no pile of dirt.) Fallon weighs about 37 pounds when she's holding 20 pound dumbells in each hand. I'm serious. I'm surprised she hasn't floated away. Okay, maybe not that light, but let's just say she's not a power pitcher. But what she lacks in speed, she makes up for in location. Man, she was on point tonight. She was making girls hit ground balls and pop ups all night long. But when you do that, you've got to have a defense behind you to make plays. And our defense is a bit streaky. Some games, we're lights out, but some games, we shoot ourselves in the foot with untimely errors. Well that didn't happen tonight. We were making diving catches, tagging runners out, and making all of the plays that we were supposed to make. It's just too bad we couldn't hit the ball. We got a few runners on, even had bases loaded once, but we couldn't get anyone in. In unprecedented 12 year old fashion, we took a 0-0 tie into the top of the 4th inning. The first batter hit a line drive on the first pitch into the gap for a double. Uh-Oh. Second batter moved the runner to third on a ground out to Tori. At this point, we pull Fallon, put our ace Kasie back in, and hope for the best. The runner ends up scoring on another ground out, then Kasie struck out the next batter to end the inning. Down 1-0. The score stays 1-0 all the way into the bottom of the 6th inning. Our first batter strikes out, then Tori comes up to bat. She goes down in the count 0-2. Oh boy. Then she fouls off a pitch. Still 0-2. Takes on a ball in the dirt. 1-2. Fouls off two more pitches. Still 1-2. Ball outside, 2-2. Ball in the dirt 3-2. Then she proceeds to foul off 3 more pitches before she takes ball 4. By this time I had chewed off my entire left pinky because of nerves. 1 out, runner on first. Coach gives the steal sign. At this point their catcher had thrown out 3 girls at second already. Not Tori; she beats the throw. Now I'm down to 8 fingers. Next batter, first pitch, passed ball, Tori takes third base. Now we've got life. Pitcher beans the batter on the next pitch. Then she takes second base trying to get the catcher to throw down to second so Tori could go, but no dice. Second and third, 1 out. Big hitter up; intentional walk. Bases loaded, 1 out. First pitch on the next batter, pitcher throws one in the dirt, gets by the catcher, Tori takes off. I've eaten my left hand by now. Aaaaaannnnnnnnndddddddd ssssssshhhhhhheeeee's SAAAAAAAFFFFEEEEE, SAAAAAAAFFFFEEEEE. (I kept picturing the ump from Major League at the end when Wesley Snipes slid into home. You know, the guy with the killer mustache. Man I loved that mustache.) Through all of that, the runners advanced. Next batter hits a shot to the shortstop. She fields it cleanly, but not enough time to catch the runner at home. Thank You Jesus! We get to go home! It was already 9:00 after this game, and now the other team had to play again to make it to tomorrow's game.







(Quick note: I didn't have time to finish this post Friday night, so here's what happened on Saturday. And here's a picture of Tori and Kayli after the game. Kayli spent the night over after the game.)















So we find out Saturday morning that the team that we beat Friday night won the late game, so we had to play them again. If we beat them in the first game, we're State Champs. If not, we've got to play another game. We had to get to the field at 8:00 am, and by that time it was already about 80º. Gonna be a hot one.

As good as the game was the night before, this one was that bad. We go down 4-0 in the first inning due to a number of errors, untimely walks, etc. Just ugly. We did manage to rack up 5 runs in the 3rd inning to take the lead, but the girls just didn't have it. We gave up 6 runs in the top of the fourth on more walks, more fielding errors, more bad throws, bad decisions; basically anything that could go wrong did. We cut the lead to 10-7 in the bottom of the 5th, but the wheels fell off in the top of the sixth. We went through 3 pitchers and gave up 14 runs. Yep. 14. Not good. What made it even worse was the fact that the inning took over an hour to play, and by this point in the day it was over 100º. The girls were just gassed. Mentally and physically gassed. 21-7. Hey, we only lost by two touchdowns.

To make matters worse, we get a 15 minute break before the next game starts. Now we've got girls crying, girls tired, girls angry. Not a good sign. Before and after each game, the coaches give a little bit of a pep talk to the team. And when it comes to motivating 12 year old girls, I'm about as useful as buying a vowel on a Russian version of Wheel of Fortune. (You didn't think I'd be able to work in a useful joke, did you? You underestimate my retardedness.) I can give the girls instructions, tips, advice, comic relief. I can even some encouragement throughout the game now and then, but firing them up to get ready to play a game after they've been out in 100º heat for 4 hours and just got shilacked by the team that they're about to play again.......Not so much.

Surprisingly, we come out swinging. Tori leads off the top of the first with another walk, and we end up putting up 2 quick runs. Kasie starts us off with 4 straight scoreless innings. Defense is ballin. We can't even sniff the plate on offense though. A couple of errors allow them to score two in the bottom of the fifth. Crap. No scores in the 6th. We go to extras. Get out of a jam in the seventh with some nice defensive plays, and go the the eighth. We get a run in the top of the eighth after a Kasie triple to go up 3-2. Fallon comes back in to pitch the bottom of the eighth, strikes out two and gets a pop-up to left field. State Champs. Finally! After 6 hours in the heat, the girls pulled it off. They fought and fought and fought all the way through. I get to say I'm a State Championship coach, but the truth is that I didn't really do a whole heck of a lot. Except maybe chew up my fingers. I'm so proud of them. It was awesome.

Here's Tori with the state championship trophy:

When we got home, I wanted to go workout, but I was just soooooo tired from being outside all day long. I had a headache, I stank, just not good workout conditions. Reluctantly, I got my butt off the couch and went to the gym. While I was there, I was struggling. I know it sounds silly, but I kept thinking to myself that if those girls could play all day in the heat like that, then I could do another set. I have a feeling that it won't be the last time that I use this experience as inspiration, either. But for now I'm gonna go take a nap.