UNTI FAMILY

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posted by The Pants @ 8:09 AM Comments: 0

Go Birds!

This week Max's team the Orioles had their end of season league tournament. There were six teams in the league. The teams in first and second got a bye. Max's team was the fith seed in the tournament. The first game they played the fourth seed. The games are six innings long and Max pitched the fourth and the fifth. The first inning went well but in the fifth the other team scored a few runs off of him and he got upset with himself. There were many lead changes in the game. When the game went to the bottom of the sixth the Orioles were up by two but the other team scored two to send the game into extra innings. In the bottom of the seventh our team was able to drive in one run. Max was playing short stop during the last inning and before our pitcher started warming up I saw Max go over and say a few words to him. It was going to be tough to protect the lead but our pitcher did an excellent job of shutting down the first two batters. When the last batter came up he hit the ball in the gap between first and second. The second basemen was a young second grader who was playing up with the third and fourth graders. He is probably the smallest boy in the league. But he was quick and made an excellent read on the well hit ball. He ran on an angle toward first base and right field and just when he was getting near the outfield grass the ball took a sudden long high hop. The second basemen reached out fully extended and was able to grab the ball. He spun around counter clockwise and made the throw to first just in time to get the runner out! The team went wild and the season would last at least one more game.

A day later we got an e-mail from the parents of the boy who did a great job pitching four innings in that game including the last inning. Max apparently told the boy who pitched the last inning, "We win as a team, we lose as a team" and told him to just go out there and pitch. I think I was more proud to hear those words than I was of the win.

Friday we found ourselves back at the park to watch Max and the Birds face the number two seed in the tournament. It was a team that had beaten them twice this season. Max had four innings of eligibility left to pitch in the tournament. We were the away team again and in our first at bat we scored four runs. Max went out and pitched his best game of the year protecting the lead for all four innings. He gave up some runs but held it together. It seemed every ball they hit was a pop fly to Max or a ground ball back to him. At one point they tried bunting but he scooped it up and made the throw to first. There was a scary moment in the fifth when our best pitcher was hit with a ball in the leg and we were not certain if he would be able to come back and pitch the sixth but he shook it off and closed the game out. With an 8-5 win the birds were now in the championship game!

Saturday morning at 10:00 AM the Birds faced an undefeated team in the championship game short two of their best arms. This team had not lost a game all season long and as much as I would like to say we had a fairy tale ending, this team turned out to be just too much for our guys to handle. However we did rally late in the sixth to give them a game. With the score 9 to 5 and two outs Max came up to bat and hit a ball to the third base side of the infield. It was a bang bang play at first and by bang bang I mean Max ran over the first basemen. The runner on second scored and Max quickly got up and ran to second. We were getting to the best part of the line up and the other coach called a time out and gathered his players together at the mound. Our next batter hit another ball to the left side of the infield and I thought Max would score the seventh run but the other team made the play at first and the Oriole's season came to an end!

It was a great tournament and experience for these boys to start out as a fith seed and come together and string together three strong games all as underdogs. They never quit and always encouraged each other. Just when we thought baseball was over we got word this week that Max has made the All-Star Team and will be playing in two tournaments. Practice starts next week!

posted by The Pants @ 6:18 AM Comments: 0