As soon as we finished packing Saturday morning (after the Royals had lost out Friday) we began the road trip to Virginia for the 18u PONY Nationals with the Danes. It took us two full days of driving just to get there! But the car ride was just the beginning to this weeks adventure.
The first day of play we started out with four of our five pool games. The first game was super close in which we lost to the bombers 1-0. Our second game was vs. SE Mass Extreme. It was a tight 2-0 win. Our third game was vs. Ashburn Stars. Before the game we had internet scouted (watched their recruiting video) some of the players on the team and were prepared for a very tight game. The game ended 6-3 in our favor. Our last game of the day was vs. Team Canada. As Tim said, "We are not playing for ourselves, our teammates, or our families, but for our country!! Now kick those maple syrup loving peoples butt!" And that we did! We won for merica in a hard fought 7-3 game!
The next day we only had one game in which we faced the PA Intensity. For my returning teammates it was redemption because the Intensity had knocked them out of the tournament last year. We won the game 10-0 in 5 innings, it was a very good win for our veterans. After we went back to the hotel and took a team nap. I can't tell you how much I have grown to love naps! As soon as everyone was ready to go we headed down to the train station to go to a Nationals game! I finally got to see Bryce Harper in action and he hit a homerun and made a diving catch to top it off! The Braves also hit Harper and almost started a bench clearing brawl. You know it was serious because even the bullpens were cleared haha ;)
In the morning bracket play finally started and we faced Team Mizuno first and won 5-1. We then played the green devils and lost 7-2 and were done for the day. We had a team steak dinner and then headed back to the fields for a light practice. We went through our throwing progression, then worked all defense to stay sharp for tomorrows game, and get lots of reps in doing things the right way. Most teams arrive for warm-ups about an hour before the game. Our warm-up is two hours long. A lot of the time we will have completed dynamic warm-up and have already been hitting for over a half an hour. We get so many more reps than other teams during warm-ups, and that really benefits us when it comes to game time.
Our first game on Thursday was vs. the Bahamians. We won 10-0 in 5 innings and were on to the next game, a rematch vs. Team Mizuno. It was 0-0 through the 5th inning when they scored a run. They also scored one in the sixth, but we never had an answer for them. The ending score was 2-0 and we were out of the tournament. Losing to Team Mizuno was very disappointing but especially because of how they acted. They did not play hard, and didn't even seem to want to be there. Their attitudes were all very negative. They could have been a very good team but because of their attitudes, they became average.
During a whole week tournament you have so much time to learn with as many games as you play and all of the practice time available. Playing next to Megan Champion, a sub for the week, I learned a lot about the little things and how much they count. I also learned to communicate even more when playing next to someone new. Through my failures and successes this week I learned how well I can do but also have to incentive to keep working hard to fix my failures. A huge emphasis this week was how to recover from failure. You have to be able to think about what you should have done, learn from it, and then move on. Because, in our game you are going to get many more opportunities to do it right and if you have not reset yourself mentally, you will probably make another mistake. Even though I was having mechanical issues throughout the tournament, I was still able to put the ball in play to help my team. I had a blast this week doing what I love and cannot wait for our fall season to start in two weeks!
 |
| Diving catch on a bunt turned into a double play |
No comments:
Post a Comment