Sunday Play

Playing in a baseball tournament on a Sunday almost always means that the team has done well enough to earn a spot in bracket play. This weekend was a little different since most of the games on Saturday were rained out. It was a smaller tournament with only 8 teams, so the director seeded each team according to how they had done on Friday night and Saturday morning. Since the boys lost on Friday night and didn't play on Saturday they were given a low seed. Their low seed meant that they played the other Eden Prairie team....which was seeded 2nd. Ugh. Those games always make me feel uneasy...win or lose, it isn't easy. The day was 50 degrees cold and damp. Quite a change from hot, dry and windy last Sunday.

The game before theirs went long, the boys had to wait. Waiting is tough.

That first game was finally over and the boys took a quick jog to get warmed up again. They seemed to be in good spirits.

The coaches had a somber talk with them before the game.

It must have worked, they played really well. They picked off at least 3 runners that got too far from first base. Billy was playing first so it was extra fun for me to watch! Here's the first one...out!

The pitcher started to struggle a little bit, so the team got together in the infield for a little pep talk. Either that or they were talking about that cool run down, let's do it again! Maybe they were talking about how cold it was. Or maybe they were just figuring out where to go between games. Could have been anything....they'll never tell.

And then there was another pick off / run down. It seemed like that pumped up our boys as much as it depressed the other team.

They won the game...and then there was a sea of red for the hand shake...good game, good game..errr....good game. It's hard for the kids to play a team that has boys they played with in other seasons, or play with in other sports and classmates, and friends. They all handled it really well. Easy for me to say since we won this one! :-)

Then they had some lunch and played another game...a close one that they lost 4 to 5 which knocked them out of the championship game.

It was muddy, one smart dad brought an ice scraper to clean off cleats. It felt cold enough to use it for scraping ice.

After their loss and another break, they played in their final game of the day...which they won to take third place in the tournament. The coaches had another talk with them...this one looks somber, but the coaches were really just saying how proud they were of the boys.

They did especially well considering that they have one player on the bench because of an injury and another player had to leave after the first game for his great grandmother's funeral....leaving them with just 9 for the last two games. The coaches should be proud!

The frozen to the bone parents were proud too.....let's go home......and applauded them when they got their trophies....can we go home?.....and then lined them up for a few team pictures......please let's go home now. And then.....we went home....and we all lived happily ever after. The end.