Struggles of the Early Summer

Well with the summer about to hit full swing I've really neglected my postings. Also add in the fact that we've struggled in softball and baseball so there hasn't been a lot of positives to talk about.

A week and a half ago we were playing softball up in Camp Douglas. Due to work I missed the first game which we won but, then followed that up with a couple of rough loses which i was a part of on Saturday afternoon. We faced River City Coors Light in the first lost and were crushed 28ish to 3. They just hit single after single after single and then the occasional home run. We had three bad errors in the outfield, one was mine, other then that we played a pretty solid defensive game but, just couldn't get the bats going. The second lost was just as rough as Breakaway took us down 25-10 or so. This was the first game I played third base but, it seemed like these guys just crushed the ball incredibly hard. Balls were through the infield before I could even make a move and on home runs we didn't even move, you knew they were at once the ball was hit. I ended up going 0 for the tourney and my brother only had one hit which was a home run. After this weekend our tournament team is now 7-3 with a 1st place finish and a 5th place finish.

Baseball has started off even worse as we've now started the season 0-3. First game of the year against Cazanovia we lost 5-0 and only had two hits. Caz only had two hits themselves but, our starting pitcher couldn't throw a strike to save his life and hit four guys in the first inning and another two in the second inning before he was pulled. Second game I missed but, we lost 6-0 to Cross Plains. Game three was a disaster all around as we were without lights so the game went only four innings and we lost to Sparta 7-3. Were not hitting right now and our supposive number one has no control right now and to top it off we have 20 guys on the team so half our guys aren't playing. Were now going to be playing inter team games on Wednesday nights just to get everyone at bats. Can't hurt the guys who are playing because their not hitting either.

Well not much else to talk about. Hopefully I'll begin to keep up with this again and be posting after every game. Due to the fact that I play softball about every night that probably won't happen but, I'll try to get on here at least twice a week and post.

Warrens Tournament Champs

With the softball season starting up my posting will probably pick back up again. When I have free time anyway because it appears I will be having games every night. This year I probably won't be playing in the Mauston Coed league but, will probably be playing with a team in Portage on Monday nights. Anyway this weekend was our first tournament with Harmony. Tournament was limited arc, which means pitches are 6-12 feet. Typically we play unlimited arc but, will get into any tournament we can. This was a weaker tournament which we were able to win. This was nice because it was our first tournament of the year and it's nice to start the year off with a tournament win.

Our first game was against Sunset from Black River Falls. They weren't too much of a competition as we run ruled them in five innings with a score of 18-3. Highlight of this game was my brother going 3-3 with three home runs. Game two was against Ridgeview who was from Warrens and had a few guys from Breakaway who is a very good tournament team. This game was a great battle as we were down 13-0, came back to make it 13-10, then went down 19-10, before finally winning 22-21. The night cap was against a younger team from the Lacrosse/Black River Falls area. They had full uniforms which was a little intimidating but, we took the early lead and never looked back. Final score was 19-10. To end Saturday night there was a home run derby which wasn't do great due to the rain and lack of home runs. My brother hit only one home run in the derby and the winner of the derby had only three bombs.

Sunday we took on a very young Crow Bar team from Warrens. We jumped out early and despite a slight come back from them we were able to hang on for a 25-15 win. In the championship game we needed to only beat the second Crow Bar team once to win the tournament or have them beat us twice. Of course they beat us the first game, where we played terrible and lost 26-10. This Crow Bar team had quite a few guys from a pretty good Barrons team. The championship game went right to the wire as one of our guys hit a walk off home run to win the game and tournament 22-21.

We went 5-1 on the tournament and averaged 19.3 runs per game and outscored our opponents 116-96. Was a great first tournament and is hopefully a forecast of how the season will go.