Safety Harbor Falls 6-5 to Countryside in the District 12 Championship

Well, it wasn't meant to be, I guess. After building a 4-0 lead in the first inning, Safety Harbor allowed Countryside to climb back into a 4-4 tie with errors and giving up a two run home run. In the fourth inning, Safety Harbor climbed back into the lead 5-4, in the top of the fifth allowed 2 runs to score on a costly error and that's the way it ended, 6-5.

The team was very disappointed, as you could imagine. And, not to sound like a homer, but our team was far more talented, but we did not make the hits when we needed it most. Playing that Countryside team nine times out of ten and we probably would win all of them. For the first time in the tournament we failed at hitting the ball effectively and allowed timely errors to decide the game against us.

Gabe had an okay game, going 1-3 with a single and two ground outs. He made multiple near-catch dives in the infield, but the balls continued past his glove into the outfield.

His effort was there, the talent was there, but the score was not. A wasted opportunity, to be sure.

So ends spring baseball. I was very proud of Gabe this playoffs. He started spring ball in the regular season at second base and made four errors in his first game and got called looking on third strikes numerous times.

Boy, how he's grown. He ended the tournament season with no errors and no strike outs, getting on base one way or another 14 out of 17 at bats.

Thanks to all of the coaches, especially Bob Bates for all of his work. And a special thank you to Robbie and Kristi for coming down from Georgia, for Betty, Chaz and Elizabeth coming to the game, and for Tim O. for supporting Gabe at the game today.

I'll be thinking about the "What ifs..." for the next few weeks, I'm certain.