The Francis Howell Tournament is a
long drive for a long day of softball. But we get a chance to face teams we
don't see during the regular season and generally play some pretty good
competition. Thanks to the many parents who made the trek and cheered the team.
One thing I've noticed over the years: Webster parents enjoy rooting for the
girls and encouraging good play, certainly like winning games. Unlike parents
from other places, however, it's the process and not the results that seem to
matter most. I often get the feeling that the well-being of parents (and their
kids) from other district hinges on the outcome of a JV softball game. Just
sayin'....
In Game 1 we faced a strong squad from
tournament host Francis Howell and suffered our first run-rule defeat of the
season. Nevertheless, our girls earned praise from FHHS coaches and it took a
walk-off bomb in the bottom of the 5th to finish us. Those girls could hit, and
with the wind blowing out on a baseball diamond, let's just say we had ample
opportunity to handle our cuts and relays. I was very pleased with how we
handled that. Only triples and doubles, no homers or circling the bases on
errors. They were just better than us, doubt that we'd beat them even once in a
10-game series. We did score 6 runs against good pitching, something the
Vikings were apparently not used to have happening.
The second game pitted us against Fort
Zumwalt South, a program seemingly on the decline. They were the power team
when we first started going to this tournament. Our first year we lost to them
in the finals, 7-2, in a game that wasn’t even as close as the score would
indicate. However, they have become increasingly less competitive over the
years, for whatever reason. We suffered a brief letdown as it was clear we were
the better team and we lost a little concentration and played down to their
level. We regrouped and put the game out of reach with a 12-run fifth inning
that we had to end ourselves by having a runner leave the bag early. AnnaClaire
Bryant did a nice job picking up her second win, with lots of offensive support
up and down the line-up.
Often the final game in a tournament
like this is the closest as the competition is leveled. Playing for fifth place
against Fort Zumwalt North, we lost in a back and forth game as we ran out of
gas on defense and made some costly errors. As noted above, I got the feeling
that the FZ North parents needed this win more than ours did. The box score
looks worse than it was, because going into the time-limit the score was only
10-9. Needing a quick inning, the Panthers tacked on three more to eat up the
remaining time. Their coach became less upset about the time limit than she had
been when she was trailing 9-7….
As always, enjoy the outstanding
photos by the team photographer, Beth Kazlauskus. I saw other parents doing
some shooting Saturday and I just wanted to let everyone know that Beth does
not have the exclusive contract for pix, so feel free to share with me and I’ll
post them, as well.
It IS a long day of softball and we’ll
need to ramp up our ability to focus if we’re going to be successful next week
at the Hancock Tournament at Affton. Team notes: Transportation to the
tournament on your own. First game time, 8:30. Time limit: 1 hour, 20 minutes.
Game 2: 10 a.m. Game 3: 11:30 a.m. Done by 1 p.m. The Lamprechts are graciously
hosting an end-of-season BBQ and I look forward to seeing you and the players
there.
Apparently this blog is very popular in Indonesia. Who knew?
ReplyDeleteSamantha is missing from the team picture :-(
ReplyDelete