[Ksyrup]

We hosted our first tournament this weekend, and it went great. It was a long weekend, because in addition to being there for the girls, we had to run gate, pick-up trash, etc., the whole weekend, but everything worked out. Out of 10 12U teams, we finished 3rd.

Saturday, we played 1 warm-up game before the elimination portion of the tournament began. We ran through a way-behind 1st year team 18-0. Wasn't even fun. I spent the whole time talking to one of their parents about what they needed to do to get better - they were a first-year organization straight out of the rec leagues. At the 8U and maybe 1st year 10U level, that's doable. At 12U, you're probably hopelessly behind if you don't start doing some serious coaching. I'm talking, on stolen bases, no one was even covering 2nd. Stuff like that.

Anyway, second game counted and we played a decent 1st/2nd year mixed team. Caitlin pitched, and did really well. We put up 5 runs in the 2nd inning and cruised to a 6-1 win. She pitched 5 innings, gave up 5 hits, 2 walks and 6 Ks.

Last game of the day, we faced the team with a bunch of our middle school teammates on it from our home town. We beat them in extra innings last weekend. This time, we couldn't touch their pitcher - she'll be our starting 8th pitcher in middle school next year. We were down 3-1 and gave away 2 runs in the top of the 5th on a couple of sloppy plays, and it looked about over. Bottom of the 5th, we had 2 down and 1 on and started a comeback. Got a couple of hits, a walk, and an error on a bunt and it was 5-3 with runners on 2nd and 3rd when the girl hitting in front of Caitlin unleashed a bomb to right-center to tie the game at 5. Caitlin came up with a runner on 2nd to win the game, but she walked instead and the next batter hit a single through the left side to win the game. It was crazy.

That put us in the winner's bracket and a late morning game yesterday. We started shaky, but put up 9 runs in the 2nd and cruised 14-5. that put us in the winner's bracket championship game against the best (biggest and oldest) team in the tournament. Caitlin got the start. She actually pitched pretty good, but this team could hit and we made several errors, couldn't get the bats going, and lost pretty easily 9-2. I think Caitlin ended up giving up 8 hits, 5 earned runs, and only 2 strike outs in 4 innngs. They just flat-out could hit the ball.

Last game of the tournament we played the winner of the loser's bracket, the team we came back to beat 7-5 in last weekend's tournament. It was another tight game - they were up 5-4 with a chance to close us out when one of our girls hit a HR to tie it. Went to extra innings, and they scored 1 in the 7th, we tied it, and in the 8th, we got absolutely screwed on a non-call on a foul ball that went for a triple, and from there the flood gates opened. They scored 5. We scored 2 in the bottom, but just couldn't match them and we lost 11-8.

Caitlin continues to hit like Adam Dunn or something - one of those "3 true outcomes" hitters. She went 4-10 with 2 doubles, 4 strike outs, and 7 walks for the weekend.

Pretty good weekend all around, though. We're already looking forward to next year when we'll be a 2nd year team. As well as we're competing and as young as we are, we're gonna win a whole bunch next year.

This coming weekend is our last tournament until after July 4th. We're doing a yard sale/car wash the following weekend, then taking July 4th off, then starting back again to make the push for our world series in Columbus OH at the end of July.