In hopes of drawing in more male readers, I will now be posting an exciting, nail biting sports commentary.
Just kidding.
I'm just gonna tell ya'll about my daughter's softball team, and their progress in this week's tournament.
We entered the tournament as the #13 seed. Yeah, not so hopeful.
In the first game we beat the #4 seed. It was an awesome game and both teams played very well. The game was one of the quickest we've ever sat through because each team played such good defense that three outs came about faster than you could say "batter up." It's amazing that our seeds were so dramatically different because the teams seemed very equal on the field.
I will just say that our girls played awesome ball that night.
No brag, just fact.
Kayla was pitching and she and Becky, on first base, worked beautifully together to make several of the outs. Shannon, our catcher, made a couple of awesome plays at the plate, thanks to our amazing third base player, Gabby, who has an amazingly accurate throw. And Emily grabbed what would have been a home run hit to left field, and threw it to third base, just as the runner was heading for home. Gabby in turn, fired it to Shannon who was able to tag the runner before she slid in.
Robbing her of that home run was, of course, crucial to our victory.
As was the two run homer Emily hit.
We won 4 to 2 and our girls needed a victory like that.
Last night we won 15-4. Again we played extremely well. The other Emily caught about a zillion pop flies. The pitcher-to-first base plays were smooth and accurate; and several of our girls made some impressive slides into home to score.
For those of you who aren't aware - sliding doesn't come as easily for girls as it does for boys. But it is a rule, especially in tournaments, that they slide into home if the ball is coming in. And, I must say, our girls are picking it up quite nicely. Somebody had told me they taught their daughter to slide with a Slip-n-Slide, so I bought one last year and Kayla and a couple of her friends practiced on that.
Anyway, tonight we play two games, the first of which is against the #1 seed. This team happens to be the neighboring town which is whom we are consolidated with for school. This means the girls are playing their classmates. It is always a difficult game and I wish there was another way to do it. And then we play a second game.
It is a double elimination tournament and we have not lost yet, so who knows how much longer we'll play. The exciting thing is that we started out in the losers' bracket as the #13 seed and we have moved into the winners' bracket and are playing the #1 seed tonight.
Last night, the coach of the team we will play tonight was out "scouting" our game. Because his daughter goes to school with Kayla, we know him fairly well so we were visiting with him. He took off his sunglasses and said "I have $500 and a time share to Hilton Head for you if you convince Kayla to come pitch for me next year."
I simply said "Show me the money..."
But how flattering that he thought she was doing so well. And she actually is.
Pitching is her passion and she's starting to get some notice from it. However well she does, I am proud of her and just want her to enjoy herself during this phase of life. And thanks to Title IX, she will get to enjoy sports, if she wants to, throughout her high school years.
And I want to enjoy it too because it's going by faster than her fast ball.
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