As I wrote yesterday, we went 3-0 on Saturday which meant that Sunday we didn't have to start playing until noon. Four of the top five teams at the Illinois state tournament were in our bracket, a decidedly tough draw. We were going to have to play three of them to get through the winners bracket and had already beaten two of them on Saturday.
Our first game was against Dynasty, a team from the suburbs that we haven't played before but who a left-handed lead-off hitter who was fast as the wind. His first time up, he slapped the ball to our shortstop who couldn't get a handle on the ball because he was rushing to throw the guy out. I started off the day at third base, but after a few more booted balls by our shortstop, I was moved over to replace him. Playing short and third are very different and I'm much more comfortable at short, but the reality is on a day in and day out basis, we have three guys who can play the position as well or better than me. One of them started this game and, like I said, struggled. One of the others wasn't at the tournament because he just had a baby and the third was playing first base instead because he's been struggling with ground balls for the past three weeks or so.
So in I jumped at short and played a flawless game as we came from behind to pull off the victory. I'm not sure what the score was, but it was close. The usually prompt USSSA website hasn't been updated with the scores yet.
After an hour break, we played another 4-0 team, Team Hooters from Davenport Iowa. They had some really fast guys playing the outfield who could cover ground and were fast on the bases as well. We pulled off a seventh inning comeback on them to win 10-9 I think and included me playing shortstop again and again without making any errors. Their fast outfielders could get to anything in the air, but if you hit the ball past the infield, you could take an extra base on their outfielders weak arms, something we exploited often.
After another hour break, we were back playing Team Hooters who had beaten another team from Illinois to come back out of the loser's bracket. In a double elimination tournament, they were going to have to beat us twice since we hadn't lost and they had lost once (when we beat them). They jumped on us with after the first inning to take a 7-2 lead. We were visitors in this game and would be the home team in a second game if necessary. The sun started to lower on the horizon and was right in the batters' face so it was tough to hit any pitch coming in over 4' high. Why they chose this field to play on under these conditions is beyond me. Down 8-2, I came up to bat with two outs and runners on second and third in the third or fourth inning. I roped a single to center to score both runners and make it 8-4. It really seemed to lift the team to know that we could come back and win this game. We went on to take a 13-8 lead going into the seventh inning and won 13-11. We're National Champions!!!!
The first, second, third and fourth place team gets to name players to the All-Tournament team. In total there's about 10 to 12 players selected. Guess who was named to the team!!
That's right!! Yours truly was named to the team for my defense and some timely hitting. It was quite an honor and the first time I've been named.
With this win, we EARNED a bid to the World Series in Disney in two weeks, a tournament to which we had received and at large bid already. Now we have the confidence to know that we can beat some of the best teams out there. Go Dawgs!!!
6 comments:
WOW - congrats Joe!!!! Does a bid mean you get to go for sure? Seems to imply there is still some chance left.
Well done. I know this means a lot to you.
Oh, the "bid" is just an invitation which we've accepted. In this case, it's a paid bid so we save our sponsor some money from paying the tournament entry fee.
Excellent!
I don't quite understand how you are a "National" champ, though, when you only competed against a few states. It would seem to me that the Florida tourney would be "National."
They have three "national" champs I believe which are really regional champs. If they don't have a national champ, I think they feel like they can't have a world series and super world series. It's sort of like grade inflation. State becomes regional, regional becomes national, national is world series, world series is super world series. National sounds better to me though!!
That's basically what I figured, Joe.
Great job!
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