After two rain outs and reschedules the Safety Harbor 10-11 All Stars started the tourney by winning 9-2 over Countryside in a well-played game. The victory was important for a few reasons. First, Countryside beat Safety Harbor in the 10-11 District 12 title game last year and Gabe had been stewing about that since then. Second, our coach, Bob Sauerwine, had never beaten a Countryside team in regular season or post-season play. I don't know how long he's been stewing about that. :)
So, last nights victory was enormously satisfying. Countryside is always well coached, well funded and with really good players. Over the years we've always felt like a Bad News Bears team when playing against them. It was nice to finally win one in an important game against such a great competitor.
Gabe started as our pitcher and pitched a wonderful game. In the first inning, with two outs, he gave up a solo home run, but after that with consistent pitching and a solid defense behind him Safety Harbor only gave up one more run the entire game. He pitched 5 1/3 innings out of 6, the last two outs pitched by Jonathan Schimentti.
On offense, Countryside's starting pitcher was very effective early on. His pitch was not exceptionally fast, but had nice movement with a solid drop as the ball passed over the plate. Later in the game their pitchers struggled with control and walked a few of our players. Using effective bunts and aggressive base running we were able to consistently add to our run total.
On a side note, we were very happy that Dea was able to attend the last half of the game. She flew down from Atlanta and was picked up at the airport by her mom and dad. They immediately drove over and arrived at the top of the fourth inning. That was a nice bonus. After a week away it was nice to see my wife.
We celebrated at a local sports bar that is extremely kid friendly, called Varsity Club. All of the kids from all of the teams usually go there. After the heat of competition, it's always great to see kids being kids, playing video games and pool together with players from the opposing teams. A nice way to end the evening.
Next up we play Tarpon Springs on Thursday.
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5 comments:
Well, what great news. Congratulations to Gabe, daddy, mommy and the rest of the crew. As I was reading the news, I was wondering who was going to pick up Dea or did she have to wait until the game was over.Good ole Mom and Dad. I was happy to read she got there before the game was over. I'm sure you and Gabe were happy to see her. It was great to see her and DC last weekend and the weekend before. Love, Ma
Tell Gabe, "Great job!" Remind him, though, that they will have to do it again when they are playing as 12-year-olds. How many games do they have to win to become District Champs?
If they were to make it all the way, they would have to play four more games. Worst case is they play tonight, a quarter final, semi-final and championship.
Best case is we win tomorrow, get a bye in the quarter, and only have to play the semi and championship.
Assuming all goes well, of course.
Yeah for Gabe!!
Does he miss DC?
I think you meant to say "Gabe and I had been stewing".... :)
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