We opened up this tournament with a great game against Elite Printing. They had the nice additions of Daniel Bays, Adam Shoopman, and Joe Powers. On our side we have the addition of Shawn Ballard. Elite jumped on us in the top of the 1st with 10 big runs. They were hitting every hole on the field. We answered in the bottom with 7 or our own. The game was back and forth the whole way. We were ahead going into the top of the seventh 25-24. With two outs Matthew Singleton came in to make a diving grab sending Elite (his dad's ex team) to the loser's bracket.
On Saturday morning we came out flat against Undisputed. It seemed like we were just going through the motions. We managed to go on to a 10-2 victory.
Saturday night we had a really good game against Wicked. We would like to tip our hats to this team. We earned every out we got in the field as they hit the ball very hard. This was a really close game that was nip and tuck the whole way. A controversial call late in the game really made it closer than it was. We finished our half of the seventh with a 17-13 lead. Wicked battled back to cut the lead to 17-15. With a runner in scoring position the next batter hit a bomb to dead center field. The kicker is that they were out of homers.
The past few Sundays have been a struggle for us. We seem to really play well on Saturday. This Sunday was no different.
We started the day off with NWO in the final four of the winners bracket. Our hitting and defense was well below par. We hit into three untimely double plays. It seemed that every opportunity we had to win was blown. We didn't take care of business when the game was on the line. We were able to overcome our shortcomings and still make a game of it losing a close one 14-12.
Next came Trophy World. Unfortunately our Sunday Demons were still with us. Our hitting was terrible. It seemed that every chance we had to take over the game that we blew the opportunity. The double play was again our biggest enemy. We hit into 2 double plays that I can remember and barely escaped 2 more. Trophy World did what they had to to win the game and we did not. Simple as that.
Overall we came out with a 3-2 record and a 5th place finish. Woodbine is a very good tournament that had a field of 36 teams. The HR limit of 1 may not be the best tourney for us to play in but keeping the ball in the park was not a problem at all.
I think the problem this Sunday was the black cat that crossed Bill Crook's path after batting practice and just before the game with NWO.
