The Bats Take a Holiday as Safety Harbor Loses 4-1

Gabe pitched a complete game and the Safety Harbor defense continued its solid play, but the bats struggled as the team ended their all-star season with a 4-1 loss to Holiday.

The entire Safety Harbor team had little success putting the bat on the ball in all three games this year, including today. The team had multiple opportunities today early in the game with walks to gain an early lead, but failed to get a hit to drive in the potential runs.

Gabe managed to keep the opposition scoreless until the fourth inning when Holiday put all of their runs on the scoreboard by hitting solid drives to the outfield.

Gabe had four at bats, walked twice and got out twice, one on a pop up and another on a solid grounder up the middle played well by the Holiday second baseman. This left Gabe 0-8 and three walks in the entire all star tourney. If you would have told me Gabe would go hitless during the 10-11 all stars, I'd say your were completely insane.

So, I guess that makes you nuts.

Gabe did pitch very well in the two games and played nice defense. It was a good learning experience for him. We worked on the mental approach to the game and Gabe learned a lot about dealing with pressure he puts on himself.

Below are some pics (click to see larger image) from the weekend.

Gabe at the plate..




Gabe on the mound...




Now we're heading into the off season to relax and take some time away from the game for a while.

A special thanks to coaches Bob and Eric for all of their great work with the kids.

Safety Harbor 10-11 All Stars Lose 3-1

In a quick and uninspired game the Safety Harbor 10-11 All Stars lost in a defensive game to Tarpon Springs 3-1. Unfortunately, Safety Harbor did not take advantage of a nice pitching performance by Jonathan Schimmenti.

Gabe made a couple of nice plays at third base, but he's really struggled against the pitching so far... not because it is overpowering, but because it is slower. He's lunging in the batters box and, after tonight, he is now 0-7. Not pretty.

More than likely, because of our great defense we will probably be ranked fourth and should play our next game Saturday at 10 a.m.

Thank goodness this flat game was not the last one we'll have to think about for the entire off season. Whew! Hopefully the next one will be far better.

Safety Harbor 10-11 All Stars Beat Countryside 9-2!

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.