[Ksyrup]

I suck for not updating this. Everyone's asleep and I'm bored so I'm out on the balcony overlooking some Jack Nicklaus golf course and an inlet on the Gulf of Mexico to update the 1 or 2 people who read this (ha!).

So backing up a bit... We went to Indiana 3 weeks ago to play some stellar competition and had a decent tournament that (a) proved we belong and (b) proved we still are a bit behind the best of the best. We played a 27 team state tournament and finished 4th, losing only to the teams that played for the championship. We beat the teams we should have and competed well against the Class A teams we want to compete with. The first game we lost we should have won. Caitlin pitched an unbelievable game but we lost 2-1. Our hitting is definitely our weak point, at least against the best teams. The game went 6 innings and Caitlin threw 5 perfect innings, but the 5th inning we gave up an error on SS, a fisted looper over a drawn-in 3Bman, a sac fly, a swinging bunt single that Caitlin dove for but couldn't catch, and a ground out. That's how they scored 2 runs. That knocked us to the loser's bracket, and by the time we ran into another Class A team, we were cooked and lost 5-0.

Last weekend we played the Kentucky state tournament and had the same experience. Beat 3 good teams but lost to a Class A team (well, an A masquerading as a B - they are the best team in western KY) 2-1 again. So we finished 3rd. The game we lost was really the championship game, but we just ran into that team in the semifinals since they were on our side of the bracket. The game went the full 7 innings before 75 minutes were up, so it was a really great game to watch.

We just don't take good ABs against good pitchers. Once these girls figure out how to construct an AB, they will be deadly. But it's not there right now, and we will struggle for runs, expect pitching and D to carry us, and hope we don't run into any bad luck on bounces or crappy 3 foot hits, etc.

So now we're in Panama City playing the USFA Class A world series. We played 4 pool games the last 2 days - none of them count, as seeding for the double elimination tournament is based solely on USFA points accumulated during in-season tournaments - and went 3-1. We beat 3 solid teams and then just pitched our SS in the 4th game and lost pretty good. We were only supposed to have 3 games but one team didn't show for pool play so they gave us a 4th game and we didn't really try to win because we were being scouted by the 2 teams on our immediate side of the bracket (the team we play first today and the team we will play if we win that game). So hopefully we looked like the worst team in the tournament and they pitch their 3rd best pitcher saving their best for the next game. SUCKERS! Ha!

Caitlin is dealing with a lower back muscle pull/strain, so she hasn't been herself. But she's still pitching pretty well. This coincided with her "becoming a woman" a couple of weeks ago. All of this is new to me, so it's been difficult to deal with for not just her but me as well. She literally has no control over her body right now. I've heard from other softball players that their bodies are out of whack for 6-12 months until they adjust to it. Definitely not something I ever had to deal with, that's for sure! Also, this marks the unofficial one year left of growing she has, so I hope she adds another 2-3 inches by next year this time. She's just about 5'7" now, so if she can get over 5'9" that would be great. We'll see.