Change of Seasons

The Stanley Cup playoffs ended Monday night and the NBA Finals wrapped up last night.¹ Winter sports are finally over! Our family’s sports are in transition, too.

Softball finally came to an end last week, albeit an earlier-than-expected one. C.’s team dropped their opening game of the tournament by four runs. They were down by 10 runs early, cut it to one in the 5th, but had the wrong part of the lineup up in the 6th and couldn’t get over the hump. It was a bummer because they had pounded the team they lost to two of the three times they played in the regular season. But, to be honest, I think a lot of the parents were not too upset that the season ended.

C. had a mixed night, too. She went 3-6 the three strikeouts. But she made two fine plays in the field. On one, she was playing third and the pitcher’s helper threw her the ball trying to get a force out. C. got her foot on the bag, stretched for the throw, and somehow hung onto it. After the umpire signaled “Out,” C. looked around it utter, delighted, disbelief that she had held onto the ball.

She really enjoyed playing her first year of softball. I didn’t start keeping track of her hitting stats until several games into the season, but by my unofficial count, she went 34-44 over the last two-thirds of the season. She had a 17 at-bat streak without making an out. She had a 6-7 game. She began the year deep into the lineup and ended the year hitting cleanup. Not bad for never having played before.

Two nights later the girls had their first swim meet of the year, an intrasquad meet to get times in the book for putting kids in the proper heats going forward. L. won two of her races, and would have won the backstroke too if she hadn’t stopped three times and looked to see how far she had to go. But winning is relative in Under 6; she may have had a year on some of the kids she swam against.

M. and C. are in the same age group this year. With only their team on the deck, that presented chances for them to swim against and with each other. In the butterfly, they were in the same heat with one lane between them. When they realized they would be swimming against each other, M. got a goofy grin on her face and C. started talking smack about how she was going to beat her big sister. In her eagerness, C. jumped in well before the starting beep. She didn’t hesitate, though, and built a quick lead on M. even as the other two swimmers left them behind. M. slowly closed the distance and they touched the wall together. A tie for last! Good times!

The girls also swam, together in the freestyle relay. M. led off with C. second. As M. approached the wall, C. waved her arms for her to swim faster. Then, when M. touched, C. just stood there and talked to her. After about five seconds she realized she had to swim, too, and jumped in. Fortunately legs three and four were fast girls and they salvaged third place.

Our first real meet is tomorrow, weather permitting. And Mother Nature has been kind of a bitch lately, so odds are it will either storm and rain the meet out, or be oppressively hot and humid. Or both.