Evey really enjoyed playing softball this year. Even though 5 of the first 6 games were cancelled and rescheduled due to rain flooding the field. It actually worked better for us to have the season shifted later, because at the beginning of the season the games over lapped with dance a lot and so dance was the priority. Evey started the season at the top of the batting order, always getting a base hit.
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| All following pictures are from the city final game |
This year new rules were added, and stealing was allowed. It made for a much funner game, that and the pitchers are refining their skills and can throw more hittable balls now. They go through a draft at the beginning to the season so that the teams are more evenly matched, but there was one team who ended up with 2 or so AMAZING pitchers. Not sure how they pulled that off, except I think they were the coach and assistant coaches daughters! Oh well they were an awesome team and super tough to beat. But Evey's team gave them a run for their money, when they played.
Evey switched between outfield ( her coach says it's because she has a great arm to get the ball in field, but she rarely saw action out there) and 3rd base. But , it was so fun to watch her bat and steal the bases, it was pretty easy stealing 2nd and 3rd and then they would often send them to steal home, so that was always a rush watching the close calls and as my mom wrote on her facebook status after watching one game: "
I watched my oldest granddaughter Evey slide into home base and emerge out of a cloud of dirt - SAFE!!! "
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| Dang it coach!! Move!! |
At the end of the season Evey's team had the second best record. Then the city holds a tournament, so through all of that they just couldn't beat that one team, and so they came out 2nd in the league, but, that was good enough to move on to the state tournament!
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| Receiving her 2nd place ribbon. |
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| We had had a stomach bug run it's course through our house and on the day of the City final Evey had it. She rested the whole day, we thought she would have to miss the game. But because she is amazing she decided to suck it up and go to the game. They even gave her the "game" ball. She did great for wanting to throw up the whole time! |
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| Down and dirty sliding into home! |
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| Everyone else has fun at the games playing at the park, or like this day we sat in the shade and ate lots of snacks and wrastled! |
The state tourney was held not too far from our house, which made it really nice. It was double elimination so we knew we'd get to see her play at least twice. The first game was a huge eye opener! We had always heard that Provo was a fairly easy softball league and that other cities were much more gung-ho about it. Well we got a taste of that right off the bat!! This team was all about bending the rules to the breaking point as far as stealing. They went so far as to distract with one steal, to steal another girl, and then were amazing at the "pickle", which threw our girls off because they weren't used to that. Yikes! They also threw our girls off with a bunt one time, something our girls had NEVER seen in city play! And, their pitcher was
Mean and super accurate. She could switch up between a standing pitch and this running fast ball that was just plain scary!! The girls were a little intimidated in the first inning, but shook it off and didn't let them get away with it the next few innings, unfortunately the other team had won the toss for home field advantage and so were able to beat us by 2. Our team did make some amazing plays though, and our pitch chased down the runner trying to steal home and tagged her! It was an awesome moment! And a super fun game to watch!
The next game was with a team much more evenly matched, and we were pretty confident we could beat them. Well a team is only as good as their pitcher unfortunately. Our cutie pitcher was hurt twice in the first game, she twisted her ankle in an attempt to get out a base stealer and then was hit by a super hard ball as she was batting. So they ended up giving her a break in the second game, and the second pitcher although just as cute and sweet, wasn't at her best and the coaches waited too long to take her out, and we couldn't catch back up. That paired with a pair of teen aged umps who didn't really care (the field ump was throwing his own ball out in the field, not even paying attention) and made some rather stinky calls as far as balls and strikes. Oh, and the other team would waste incredible amounts of time getting out on to the field, wasting game time, and taking advantage of the stinky umps who did nothing about it. So when time was almost up, we we're down, but as long as we finished the inning they would start another if there was seconds on the clock. At the start of the bottom of that inning the clock said 1:45 and it began to thunder. After having petered out with all of the scoring the other team was able to do, this gave Evey's team and incredible boost of energy, because their team name is Thunder! They are so cute! Anyway, the clock said 1:45 and they needed to get the 3 outs to start another inning and have a chance to catch back up. And they did it!! With like a second left they got the last out, and after a little squabble between the coaches and the ump, the ump finally stood his ground and made a good call and let us start another inning! Unfortunately, they were up by a few too many and after a very noble effort we lost that one too! But it was a ton of fun and a great experience! Evey is looking forward to next season already!
I took pictures at these games, and loaded them on the computer and then erased my memory card. But, something happened and only the thumbnails are in the compute! Argh! So no pictures, sorry!
