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Old 07-11-2011, 09:01 AM   #30
Ksyrup
This guy has posted so much, his fingers are about to fall off.
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: In Absentia
Played our first tournament in a couple of weeks this weekend, the Blue Grass State Games. This is a huge, olympic-style event in more than 2 dozen sports for KY residents. We had 13 teams in our division; at the 10U level they had twice that.

Looking at the teams entered, we figured there were 3-5 teams with a legitimate shot at winning it all, 3-5 rec all-star teams with no shot, and a couple we knew very little about. As luck would have it, we drew one of the tougher teams in the first round, a team that we had beaten once and lost to once. They came out really flat, gave up a quick 2 runs and couldn't hit at all (no one was being aggressive, taking a bunch of strikes), and ended up losing 4-0. Very disappointing. That put us into the loser's bracket off the bat.

But the silver lining was that we got to match up with other losing teams, and that meant hitting our groove against inferior competition. We had 2 more games on Saturday, which we won 19-2 and 12-2. Caitlin pitched the last game, giving up 1 hit and striking out 7. She pulled a back/shoulder muscle on Friday and was having some issues with pain, but fought through it Saturday.

Our last game that night ended at 10:30pm and we had a 9am game the next morning. Since we were in the loser's bracket, we had a LONG road to win it all - up to 6 games, since we had to fight through the losers bracket and beat the winners bracket team twice. We came out hot again in the morning and won our first 2 games 11-0 and 9-0, then had a match-up with a solid team that had knocked out the 2 teams we thought we'd see at this point (1 of which was the team that beat us the day before). Caitlin pitched that game and struggled with her muscle pull, but we blistered them for 13 runs in 3 innings and won 13-6. After that, we shut her down from pitching, so we were going to have to win the last 3 games with 2 pitchers.

Next game was against the loser of the winners bracket game, and we won that one 5-0. That put us into the championship game - they held their best pitcher back and we beat them fairly easily 9-1. In the second game, they started the best pitcher we've seen all year - she threw in the low-mid 50s and almost exclusively threw a wicked curveball. Our girls hadn't seen anything like that all year. We struggled to get anything off of her, they finally scratched a run off us in the 4th, 2 more in the 5th, and we lost 3-0.

So, they finished second and got the silver medal. It was an amazing weekend - 9 games in 2 days, 6 on Sunday with a 1-game break between games 2 and 3 and that was it. Coaches cancelled practice for today - ha! Good thing, as it's supposed to be dangerously hot, too.

I'm taking Caitlin to a doctor tomorrow to see what's up with her back/shoulder muscle. Hopefully not a huge issue, but she may need to rest and not pitch this coming weekend. She hit great this weekend - she went 12-for-21 with 1 double, 4 triples, 6 RBI, 7 runs scored, and 4 walks.
__________________
M's pitcher Miguel Batista: "Now, I feel like I've had everything. I've talked pitching with Sandy Koufax, had Kenny G play for me. Maybe if I could have an interview with God, then I'd be served. I'd be complete."

Last edited by Ksyrup : 07-11-2011 at 09:23 AM.
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