D's Notebook

Tag: track (Page 1 of 2)

Weekend Notes

May 9, 2022 /

A lighter weekend around our house.

No basketball for L’s team, which was good as she was still recovering from her injury. She’s much better and is headed back to practice tonight. She should be good-to-go for this weekend, although the tournament they were scheduled to play in got cancelled so she may get another weekend off if the coach can’t find us a replacement.

M had her second tennis match of the year last week. She again played JV #1 doubles. Unlike her first match that was close throughout, she and her teammate got trounced 6–0. She plays her last match of the year tonight. A combination of a huge team and lots of rainouts means she only got to play three times. But she still enjoys it, even if she’s not had much success.

C had her last track meet of the year, the freshman City championship meet, Saturday. We were expecting your normal, long-ass track day since it was the City championship. But the whole City/County split for Indianapolis/Marion County schools is always weird and there were only five schools there, and three of the schools had less than 10 total athletes. That meant the meet zipped by, especially since all the distance races were single heats with boys and girls running together. That was a bonus since it was still chilly and breezy Saturday morning. It was, hopefully, the last time we’ll need coats and blankets for a youth sporting event until next fall.

She ran the second heat of the 100. I still haven’t seen official results so don’t know if she was second or third; the finish was very close. Then she ran the third leg of the 4×100 relay. They were only racing against one other school and they won easily. CHS had a big lead when C got the baton and she stretched it out before she passed to the anchor. They were so far ahead that I couldn’t really track her progress vs the other third-leg runner. But her teammates said she blew it out. Which was a good way to end her season.

Cathedral won both the boys and girls titles. Had they not it would have been a massive upset, since they had probably as many kids as the other four schools combined.

It was fun to hang out with some St P’s parents who have kids at other schools for the first time since last spring’s CYO meets.

A little later it warmed up so we were able to spend some time in the yard. We’re having another round of landscaping done next month, so this was more trimming and evaluating how last year’s plantings made it through the winter.

We were able to watch the Kentucky Derby out on the back porch. Always nice to be able to spend time out here (I’m crafting this post on the porch Monday morning).

Sunday was nice and warm. Two nephews came over and took advantage of the pool being open. When I checked the pool this morning the water had gone cloudy. Those first couple weeks of the pool season are always fun, as you’re filtering out all the crap that settled into the water over the winter and working to get the filter running properly and the water’s chemistry locked in.

We had the furnace running Sunday morning. Based on the forecast, I’m pretty sure the air conditioner will be on by Tuesday afternoon. That means we can kick the pool heater off, which is nice. Spring in the Midwest!

Weekend Notes: Prom and Sports

April 25, 2022 /

Prom

We survived our first prom weekend with pretty much zero drama.

Well, I should say prom night was pretty easy, but there was plenty of drama leading up to it. M found a dress quickly and easily, got it altered well ahead of time, and had most of the basics squared away several weeks ago.

But the planning for prom night itself was a little tense. That’s only because the plan was constantly evolving and those changes were often presented to us as “Here’s what we are doing now,” instead of “Is it ok if I do this?” M’s choice in how she opened these conversations caused most of the tension. But teenagers are gonna teenage, I guess.

She was in a group of nine couples, eight of which were just partnered up for the night. She was going with a kid we had heard of before, but they were not/are not dating. We met him for the first time at the pre-prom gathering and he seemed like a good kid. S and I were laughing at how comfortable he seemed in the whole situation, intent on having fun, where a couple of the other dudes looked exceptionally uncomfortable in their formal attire and perhaps feeling stress about the night in general. One of M’s best friend’s dates looked like he might puke from nervousness.

One of the families hosted a big gathering for kids and parents, complete with a professional photographer, a chartered bus, and a big dinner for all. It was awfully nice of them to do that, and I appreciate families that have this in their DNA.

Pictures went well, the kids ate, got on a bus for the dance, and we took off to watch L play basketball.

One other element of the pre-prom gathering that was fun was that a former local/regional celebrity was in attendance with her daughter. I won’t identify this person, other than to say she used to appear on TV commercials across the midwest hawking hot tubs, pools, spas, and outdoor furniture, among other things.

I told a few friends that this person was at the gathering, and they insisted that I get a picture. Which was a little awkward because for much of the evening I was standing 10–15 feet from her in the kitchen/dining area. Her husband is also a lot bigger than me and I didn’t want a confrontation if he saw me trying to take surreptitious pictures of his wife. If S had a few drinks in her she might have made it happen. But we were both sober and not pushing any boundaries. Which is kind of a bummer.

I must say, whoever does the plastics work for her family does very good work, for both mom and daughters (chef’s kiss GIF).

We gave M more freedom than she’s ever had, but still limited her compared to several of her friends in what her after-prom activities would be. There was a series of three parties that we knew of. We gave her permission to go to one and then S would pick her and a couple friends up sometime between 1:30–2:00. We know some of the other kids were bouncing around parties, which seemed like a terrible idea, even if parents were driving (and we weren’t sure parents were driving).

M and her crew got to our house at about 2:30. They didn’t sleep super late before heading out for breakfast, then she went to a pool party with a bunch of other prom kids Sunday afternoon. She crashed around dinner time for a bit, but I could still hear her FaceTiming with friends when I went to bed.

She seemed to have a great time and was pleased with how everything went. That set a pretty high bar for future prom nights in this house.

LB Hoops

As I said, we ducked out of the parent portion of the pre-prom party (holy P’s!) to watch L play ball.

We missed the first game of the day, which her team won by 36 and she scored 8. We got there just in time to watch game two, against a team from Evansville with a couple tall girls, one of whom was probably the best player they’ve faced all year. She could score from anywhere, handle the ball, and got any rebound she could get her hands to. She was a load.

We were down by as many as 10 midway through the second half but our girls worked incredibly hard and only lost by 3. The players and parents all left thinking that was a great step for the team, playing against a bigger and better team and staying in it until the final horn. L scored seven, including two long jumpers from the left wing that helped kick off their second-half run.

We got home at about 10:00 Saturday night and had to be back in the gym at 8:30 for a 9:05 game Sunday morning. AAU life!

Game one was against another team with size, but these girls were kind of trash. Yet they uglied-up the game and made our girls afraid to shoot inside. We were up 14–10 at halftime after they banked in two 3-pointers late in the half.

I’m not sure what our coaches told our girls at half, but they played like KU against Miami in the second half of their game. The final was 36–15. We just ran them off the court. It was fun to watch. L scored four.

On to the semis, where we faced the team we lost to Saturday again. The seeding in these tournaments is dumb. The tiebreaker is points allowed. So another team that played two mediocre teams Saturday and went 1–1 got the two seed because they gave up 44 total points, where our girls, who played the best team in the tournament and thus gave up more points, was seeded third. Strangely the first place team gave up 30 more points than the second place team.

Our girls flipped the script a little Sunday. They led from the beginning. It was never a big lead – constantly bouncing from tied to +4, but it always felt like we had the Evansville girls on the back foot. We hit a 3 with about four minutes left to go up four.

And then things kind of fell apart. Not that we got blown out or anything. Just that we made a ton of bad passes and errors both unforced and forced. We missed some easy shots. We let them get multiple offensive rebounds. We took two absolutely terrible shots that didn’t need to be taken. And we just kept missing free throws, going 2–14 for the game.

We lost the lead, tied it, got the lead back, lost it again. In the end we lost by two. Unlike Saturday the girls were really down about this one, because they knew they let it slip away. But that’s a good coaching point and area for improvement. The Evansville team won the championship game 49–11; our girls were the only group that challenged them all weekend.

L struggled scoring in the semifinal, going 0–2 from the line and 0-fer from the field. She missed a tough, contested layup on a run-out late, and then had another layup where she did everything right – was in the perfect spot on the play, made the perfect cut, went hard to the rim, jumped at the correct time off the correct foot, put the ball up off the glass – and it just rimmed out. She was super frustrated after the game. But she battled when she was in there, getting a couple big rebounds and playing solid D. It just wasn’t her team’s day.

Other Kid Sports

M finally played her first tennis match of the year Friday. She got moved up to JV #1 doubles somehow. And she actually did ok, which was surprising since she refused to take any lessons over the past year. They lost 6–2 but every game competitive unlike many of her matches last year.[1] I wouldn’t say she’s made leaps, but she gets her serve in most of the time and can hit the ball halfway decently on returns. Good enough to win a few points in JV, even against a better team.

Because of prom a lot of girls were unavailable for Saturday’s match, so M was given a chance to move up to varsity for #2 doubles. But since junior class officers had to do prom setup, she had to decline. That was a nice ego boost, though.

The varsity team had a great week, winning three matches, including two over ranked teams. I don’t think they were ranked last week but should be this week.

C has run in two track meets after having two rained out. She’s run the 100 and 200 both times. Her times are faster than her CYO times, but there are A LOT of fast girls in high school, even in three-team meets. She’s generally run a later heat and been pretty far back in the overall standings.

I think she’s a little frustrated by that. Still, she enjoys being on the team and is always in a better mood on the days she has practice compared to the days she just comes home and takes a nap after school.

I must say, I would be happy if we could have a track meet when it wasn’t 52 and windy. Those were the approximate conditions for both of her meets so far. The 200 usually doesn’t get run until 7:30 or so, at which point it gets pretty nippy.

  1. There were 26 matches, so everyone played a single set of no AD tennis. TWENTY-SIX!!! Good on the coaches for making sure everyone gets a chance to play.  ↩

Middle School Spring Sports Wrap Up

May 14, 2021 /

After six weeks of action, we are done with spring sports. At least at the middle school level.

We had a little scare before the week’s events began. L had knee issues last fall and winter, a combination of growing pains and Osgood-Schlatter disease. They largely went away after the winter basketball season ended and never popped up again this spring.

Until Monday, when she could barely walk.

We got her a crash physical therapy course (thanks to a pediatrician she knows well and some Googling), a heavy regimen of Ibuprofen, and a lot of Icy-Hot before activity. Tuesday she was better and it didn’t seem to affect her performance, which was a huge relief. It did make me want to puke for awhile, though.

Tuesday

L’s team played their City kickball semifinal. They faced a team from a school, St N’s, that is known for being kick ass at kickball, but we thought it was the weaker of their two teams. That got confirmed pretty quickly. St N’s kicked first, and their lead-off kicker got on base and scored. I knew their team was mostly fifth graders but this was not a good start.

Thankfully they didn’t score again for three innings as we run-ruled them 27–2 in five innings. L went 5–5 with two home runs and four runs scored. She and her teammates played their best defensive game of the year.

Wednesday

City track finals. L ran the 50, 100, and 200, and C the 100 plus a medley relay.

The good news for L was that she ran her fastest times of the year in all three races. The bad news was the defending champion in all three races ran faster. L finished second in both the 50 and 100 and fourth in the 200. We were hoping L could push the champ, but the margins were fairly comfortable.

L beat a girl from St S for second in both the 50 and 100. In the 100 they were just 0.04 apart and it took a long, long time for the judges to look at the video and post the times. After both races the girls ran to each other with big grins on their faces and slapped hands. I loved that they were pushing each other hard but their first thought after the finish was to congratulate each other

I wanted to hate the girl who won each race. She’s from Terre Haute so I made a few quiet, sarcastic comments about how L was the real City champ in the 50 and 100. But afterwards L said the girl is super nice and goofed around with them before and after races. You can’t hate a nice kid, even when they beat yours.

L racked up 16 very important points for St P’s in the team competition. A pretty solid season for a kid who had never ran track before. She’s already making plans for what she will run in high school.

C qualified sixth for the 100. In the final she started slow and struggled to keep up. Where every other finalist ran faster than Saturday’s prelims, she was a hair slower and finished 8th. She was not happy afterward. I reminded her A) she was a finalist and B) there were something like 30 other girls who would have loved to finish last in the championship heat, but instead were in the stands watching her. I don’t know if that helped in the moment but it will sink in eventually.

Fortunately she shook it off and ran a really nice second 100 in the medley relay. She got the baton with a narrow lead and passed it off with a bigger lead. I didn’t clock it but it looked like the best she ran all year.

Sadly our 400 runner was going against the girl who finished second in both the 800 and 1600. She caught and passed us quickly. There were two heats and our girls’ time was only good enough for fourth overall.

I think C was disappointed in her year. She was a 2x City finalist two years ago and blew away her competitors in the 200 leg of the medley relay. She’s aware enough to see other girls her age have gone through physical changes and run slower and/or differently than they did two years ago. But it was still frustrating for her to not be as successful as she was as a sixth grader.

I’m not sure exactly how all the team titles shake out. Team scores are posted for each age group, but not for an overall champion. I’ve seen other schools wear shirts that say City Track Champions and have all grades on them, though.

We for sure know that L and her 5th–6th grade teammates won the girls title. It was close for a good portion of the night but all their field points from Friday and two great relays allowed them to win by 20 points over the second-place squad. Along with three race ribbons, L will get a City Champs t-shirt.

The coaches said all the St P’s girls – fourth through eighth grades – combined to score more points than any other collective girls team. We don’t know if that’s an official championship or not. I think we should just claim it so that C can end her CYO career with a City Champs shirt of her own.

Thursday

Back to the diamond for the last kickball game of the year. This time we were playing the better team from St N. Ironically, this was exactly two years to the day since we lost to them for the fourth grade City championship. Our girls have all gotten bigger, but they look like sixth graders. St N had three girls that were bigger than anyone on C’s team. Seriously, one girl could have posted me up and scored at will. And probably tell me how soft I am the whole time.

We somehow got out of the first inning only down 8–3 but never got closer. They were an incredible team, catching everything, always making the right throw, and had a perfect blend of strong kickers, bunters, and aggressive base running on offense. Our girls held on as long as they could but eventually got run-ruled 36–9 in six innings. We did not help our cause by playing one of our worst defensive games of the year. That just meant we missed out on losing by slightly fewer runs in seven innings.

None of our girls were super upset. I think they realized pretty quickly that as good as they were, St N’s was at a different level.

L went 2–3. She crushed two balls. One was right at a girl who somehow held onto it for a very loud out. Another was to deep right, but St N’s made a great throw and got the ball back in just before L hit the hash mark between third and home and was sent back. She was piiiiiiiiised, which made me laugh. It was a good call although she insisted the umps missed it.[1]

The ending aside, a terrific season for our girls, finishing 8–1. Because I kept score at every game this year I was able to run some stats for L. She kicked 47–57 with 22 home runs. Pretty sure she would make first team All City if there was such a thing.

The loss made our family 0–4 in kickball City championship games. Throw in semifinals and we are 1–5. L’s team needs to arrange for a series of rainouts if they make it again and claim a split title like M’s team did in seventh grade.

Now the girls can rest a little and we can get back to not eating out 3–4 times a week because we’re constantly running around. I probably just jinxed us and M will make the travel list for three tennis meets next week.

  1. For you kickball neophytes, there are hash marks halfway between each base. If a runner is past that line when the pitcher gets control of the ball in the middle circle, they are awarded the next base. If they are short, they are sent back. Tons of umps miss this call which causes a lot of complaining, but the call was correct last night: she was one step short of getting to the line.  ↩

Kid Sports Notes

May 10, 2021 /

Track

The City track championship qualifying races were held Saturday.

L ran the 50, 100, and 200. C ran the 100 and 200.

L was a little annoyed with her assignments. Each athlete has a three event limit, and she was hoping to run a relay. Her coaches are smart, though. They know we will win the medley relay as long as we don’t drop the baton thanks to our 400 runner. So they are chasing the team points by having L run three individual sprints. When she complained I told her she had a shot to win three City championships plus the team title, so stop whining.

The Saturday heats were not organized at all. You just lined up wherever. A lot of the faster girls lined up in the first heat. But L kept hanging back. I don’t know if she wanted to see the fast girls run or if she was interested in keeping her heat winning streak alive. It worked out ok whatever her motivation was.

She won her heats in all three races. In the 50, she qualified second, 0.10 behind the top girl. In the 100 she did race a fast girl. They were neck-and-neck for the first 75 meters but L pulled away late. She was again second overall, this time 0.02 behind the fastest girl, the same girl who was first in the 50. She ran slower in the 200, but still qualified fifth, about 0.5 behind the fastest girl. In an upset the girl who is first in the 50 and 100 was only third in the 200. Apparently this girl, E, won all three sprints two years ago.

I think it was good L didn’t run against E Saturday. She knows how fast E is, but E has no idea how fast L is. From C’s experience two years ago, we know everyone runs faster in the finals. Hopefully L has enough speed Wednesday night to catch E in at least one race.

C ran poorly – for her – in the 200, and was fourth in her heat. The top eight go through to the finals and she was 20th.

She rocked her 100, though. She won her heat by two seconds and qualified sixth for the finals. She beat both a girl who had edged her in her 200 heat and one of her teammates who had beaten her three times this year. It was a great run and we were thrilled for her, although she seemed a little embarrassed by our enthusiasm.

That sets up a fun night of finals Wednesday. L has a legit shot at winning all three races. She thinks the 200 is her best chance, which made me laugh since she qualified worst for it. We had a talk Saturday night about race strategy. I told her how in the 50 and 100 she and E will have the two middle lanes, so she will always know exactly where she stands. She is excited and confident to go head-to-head with her.

C ran soooo much faster in her two City finals in sixth grade than she did in qualifying. She chopped over a second off her 200 time when she finished third. It’s unlikely she can win the 100, but I’d love to see her blow it out and improve on her qualifying place in her last individual race of middle school.

C will also run in at least one relay.

L and her classmates are set up great to win the girls 5th–6th team title. In Friday’s field events they nabbed two second and one third place finish. The mile final was run on Saturday and our distance girl won by 16 seconds. That was after throwing up three times at the start because she was so nervous. Those points put them in first by 7.5 points going into Wednesday.

Our distance girl should win the 800 and bring the medley relay team home. L’s buddy will run with her in both the 50 and 100, giving us five chances to grab points in the sprints. And we have enough sprinters left to likely place in the 4×100.

Tennis

M played across the street Wednesday for the second time in a five days. We’re not sure how that worked out, exactly, but did not complain about the easy commute. This time she and her partner got moved up to JV #1 singles, and had to play girls who normally play varsity #2 doubles. They got smoked 6–0, 6–0. But M actually played pretty well. Her serve looked decent, her opponents just returned it way faster than she sent it to them. It was a good learning experience.

She was set to play Thursday but it started pouring 20 minutes into the varsity matches and everything got cancelled.

Kickball

C played her final CYO kickball game Monday. It was on that stupid field L’s team had played on a week ago. This time they made the ground rule that kicking onto the sidewalk in left was a double instead of a triple. Which is just stupid for an 8th grade team. Our girls had their best kicking game of the year and sent ball after ball over the sidewalk. One girl hit the church on the fly. We were way ahead and when the umpire called the game after four innings instead of five, no one really cared.

We were supposed to play the first place team on Tuesday, but it rained all afternoon and we cancelled. Because of the softball tournament, track practice, and 8th grade Mother’s Day mass events, we chose not to reschedule the game and call it a season. That was our best coaching decision of the year. It meant we ended the season on a two-game winning streak and with a winning record at 3–2. First winning streak and first winning record since fifth grade, so it was a great way to wrap up this class’ kickball careers.

L’s team plays in the City semifinal tomorrow. We still don’t know who they play, as the division playoff game made it to the fifth inning Thursday and then it started raining. They are completing that game this afternoon.

L’s coaches are bringing boys in to practice against them to get ready for the the playoffs. We can kick with anybody. I worry our defense is a little too loose to keep us in a game against the beasts from the Southside, though.

Weekend Kid Sports Notes

May 3, 2021 /

The pace is winding down but still kid sports notes to share from the past few days.

Track

Yesterday was CYO track meet #3. This one was a little different: kids were free to make their own schedules. They picked a race, show up when it was called, and then scanned their wristband at the finish line to “register” themselves for that event.

L kept bouncing around on what to run. The 50 and 100? The 100 and 200? All three? She settled on the shorter sprints. Despite running into a pretty fierce headwind she dropped 0.11 off her 50 time, winning the race in 7.57, nearly 0.3 faster than the second-place runner. That wind slowed her down in the 100, but it slowed her opponents more. She beat her St P’s buddy by over 0.7 and the third place runner by a full second. Her time would also have been fast enough to win the 7th/8th grade girls race.

She was again taking names. After the 100 she was excited about beating “all the fast girls.” I’m not sure how she gets this information, since we didn’t have previous times for any of the new girls she ran against. I wonder if she asks when they are lining up, or if girls are just always bragging. I need to make sure some girls are talking smack to her before the city events!

She ran the first 100 of the medley relay, got a big lead, her buddy stretched it out in the second 100, but our 200 and 400 girls had issues with the baton pass and gave all the margin away. No worries, our 400 runner is the fastest in the state and won easily.

C had a good day, too. She decided to only run the 100. She got put in the second heat, which she won by about five yards. Her time was good enough to take third overall, 0.02 behind a teammate who ran the faster heat. I like to think C would have caught her if they ran the same heat.

She ran the second 100 of the medley relay. She got the baton in second, passed it off in second. Mission accomplished. Her team got destroyed in the anchor leg, though. Still, she had two good runs for the day.

Next Saturday are the preliminary rounds for the City championships.

Tennis

M played a match Friday right across the street from our house. Unfortunately she played at the same time L and I were at kickball and before S could get there. They actually played multiple sets this time, playing to four games rather than six. She and her partner lost two sets to none, but did win a couple games in one of the sets. She’s hoping to get to play tomorrow, assuming the rain passes by then.

She’s also asked about continuing lessons through the summer with the plan to play next year.

Soccer

You may recall that last Tuesday C scored a goal, earning her an ear cartilage piercing. That happened without either S or I there to see it.

Wednesday she played again and I was able to attend. I was sitting right at midfield. Late in the second half there was a loose ball near the goal, she pounced on it, and it looked like she made terrific contact, sending the ball towards the corner of the goal. The goalie did a full-out stretch and, from my perspective, seemed to knock the ball wide.

C started jumping up and down, shaking her arms, clearly yelling because she was upset. The St P’s parents around me and I started laughing, thinking C was pissed that this kid made a phenomenal save on her shot.

And then the referee blew her whistle and pointed at midfield, indicating it was a goal.

She had scored again!

Immediately I got the questions, “So does this mean two piercings?!?!” That night one of her coaches, who wasn’t at the game, texted me, “I hear the belly button piercing got approved.”

I texted S, who was at a meeting, with the news. “I only signed off on one piercing!”

After the game C said that the goalie did get his hands on the ball, but pushed it into the corner of the net where there was a big tear and the ball sailed through, making it look to those of use 50 yards away like it had missed. She was jumping up and down thinking the referee didn’t see it and she wouldn’t get her goal.

She was very pumped to have scored again.

Thursday she did something totally unprecedented: she skipped a kickball game for her team’s final soccer game. I wasn’t sure about this. We agreed at the beginning of the year that kickball would always come first. I’m a coach, for crying out loud! What kind of message does it send that I let my kid skip for another sport? But she’s having so much fun with soccer that I said it was fine with me if my kickball coaching partner agreed. Luckily her daughter plays soccer, too, and she saw the happiness on C’s face. She gave us her blessing.

In the finale Thursday C had a couple scoring chances that she couldn’t take advantage of. In the dying minutes of the game, she looked to have a breakaway with a kid in goal who did not want to be there. But one of her teammates came over and knocked her off the ball. As soon as he did that, the referee blew the whistle ending the game. I stood up and yelled, “Thanks a lot, Stephen!” All the parents around me thought I was thanking him for keeping C from scoring. In fact I was being sarcastic: I wanted her to score again!

Oh well, she had a ton of fun this past week, and that’s the most important thing.

Kickball

Turns out the game C and I missed was kind of a big deal. Just as the soccer game ended, I got a text from my coaching partner. “We won, 31–30, in 9 innings!”

Extra innings in kickball?!?! That happened to M’s team in 7th grade – they had a ten inning game – but that was the only time I had experienced it.

The next day I got the scoop. We were missing five players total, so had just enough for a team of 10. We were down seven going into the bottom of the 7th, with the bottom of the order up. They all got on base – which NEVER happens for those girls – then we scored seven to send it to extras. Neither team scored in the 8th, then we scored three in the bottom of the 9th to pull out the win.

Her team is supposed to play tonight and tomorrow, but we’ll see if weather allows that to happen.

L’s team played their final regular season game of the year Friday. They faced a team that was mixed 5th/6th graders and had been getting killed all year. So we were a little nervous when we were only up 5–4 after two innings.

Our girls scored 14 in the third, 13 in the fourth, and seven in the fifth to win by mercy rule.

L was not happy, though. The field we were playing on was weird. There was a sidewalk in left field that meant balls she normally kicks that way would be ground rule triples instead of home runs. She started the game trying to kick to center. That produced a double and a fly out. She started shifting her aim to right field, where the ball could roll. One of those kicks turned into a single and she was tagged out going to second, although she insists the tag didn’t touch her. She got another double. Then she came up in the top of the fifth with the bases loaded. She aimed toward right and absolutely smoked the ball. This was a no-doubter, everyone can walk because the defense isn’t getting it, kick.

And then the umpire raised his fist and called her out for stepping over the three foot kicking line. Which is bullshit; she was at least four inches short of it. Short enough to see clear asphalt between her shoe and the line.

This was her first game of the season in which she didn’t kick any home runs. She was not happy. After the game she wouldn’t talk for two hours. I told her to knock it off: they won by 32 on a day she didn’t kick well, and that was a good thing. Plus I had been warning her about getting close to the kicking line for a week and she kept blowing me off. Maybe this will make her adjust her technique.

Her team went 7–0 in the regular season. There are three divisions in her age group, and her team will play in a City semifinal next week. The division they matchup with has a three-way tie for first place, so it requires two playoff games this week to determine who we play. At track yesterday the coaches were trying to convince me to go scout the second playoff game. I didn’t say that I wouldn’t do it…

Weekend Kids Sports Notes

April 26, 2021 /

We are about to embark on our busiest week of the spring sports season: three tennis matches, four kickball games, one soccer game (two games missed because of kickball), and trying to squeeze in at least one track practice per girl before next weekend’s meet.

Here’s how they did last week.

Tennis

No tennis matches for M last week. She gets to play today in the first JV home meet of the year. Only 22 JV girls were selected (out of 40–50ish, we’re not sure how many girls have dropped since the initial rosters came out) and she and her partner made the list based on their play in practice. She’s pretty pumped. She has two whole-squad meets later this week.

Kickball

Last Monday L’s team played St B’s, their biggest rival within their division. Her team won a terrific game by six runs. The teams were very evenly matched. Both teams had 13-run innings on offense. Both teams had defensive innings where they gave up no runs. Our girls were a smidge better on defense and had only one bad inning kicking, and that was the difference. We went into the 7th up seven and only gave up one run, so didn’t have to kick in the bottom of the inning. It was the first time L’s class has beaten St. B’s in four tries, so there was a trip to Dairy Queen after the game.

L went 4–6 with two homers, including a grand slam.

Friday they run-ruled some girls 51–19. It should have been a five-inning game but we played awful defense in the bottom of the fifth and gave up just enough runs that we had to play one more inning. After the game I accused L of booting one ball on purpose so she could kick again. She didn’t deny it.

Her line for the night: 7–7 with two home runs and four triples. The other team could not catch but they were at least good enough to hold her to triples more often than not.

L’s squad has three games this week. Assuming they don’t lose two – and that seems highly unlikely – they will be division champs and advance to the City semifinals next week.

C’s team played their only game of the week Thursday. We were facing a team that was mostly seventh graders. We gave up 12 runs in the top of the first, scored none in the bottom, and our girls all mentally checked out. We lost 35–7 in five innings and I’m honestly not sure how we scored seven. Those seventh graders could all either blast the ball or place bunts perfectly and beat them out. Our girls couldn’t catch a thing, and acted only mildly interested in making plays on the bases. It was borderline embarrassing.

I don’t think we had a chance to beat those girls – in addition to kicking the crap out of the ball they caught anything in the air and always made the right play when throwing to bases – but it would have been nice if we competed. This was a clear indictment of our coaches (mostly the idiot third base coach).

Track

Track meet number two was yesterday. Another great day to run. Another day that L dominated.

It was a smaller meet so runners were only able to compete in two individual events.

L ran the 100 and 200, winning both. She beat her buddy in the 100 by 0.3. She won the 200 by over a second. She was pumped about that win because a girl was bragging in the lineup for the race about how fast she ran last week. L beat that girl by two full seconds. She knew her name, and the first thing she did when we got the final results was find the gap between their times. I like how she listens to other girls talk smack and then quietly goes out and beats them.

Her times were also fast enough to win both the 7th/8th grade girls races and the boys 5th/6th grade races.

I must say the times yesterday have an asterisk. The automatic timers were down most of the day, so most sprints were hand timed, which means the don’t count as PRs and you can’t really compare them across races.

C was supposed to run the 100 and 200 as well. She was struggling with some hip pain, though. In the 200 she was in good shape until the final 50 when you could see that pain really started to bother her. She faded to finish last in her heat and 9th overall. She was in tears afterward so S gave her some Motrin and she begged out of the 100, hoping she would be ready for the relay.

In the relays L ran in both the 4×100 and the medley. Her team smoked the 4×100, winning easily with her as the anchor.

The 7th/8th and 5th/6th medley relays were run together since neither age group had enough to fill all the lanes. That meant C and L would run the 200 legs in lanes next to each other. C was feeling better and laughing and bouncing around by the time the race began. There was a buzz among the St P’s parents when they saw our girls walking to turn three together. L has developed a little bit of a following the last two weeks, and the older parents remember how well C ran two years ago. Folks were watching S and I to see who we were pulling for.

The older girls had a decent lead when C got the baton. She took off and L waited and waited. When she finally got the stick C was 10–15 meters ahead. From our vantage point near the finish line we could see L closing, but couldn’t tell what the gap was when they exited turn four. They seemed awfully close, though. But then L drifted into C’s lane for several steps, realized her mistake, lost her rhythm, and jumped back in her proper lane. She never really got that rhythm back and handed off in second place. Her anchor quickly took the lead and the younger girls won the race.

In the city meet L’s team would have been disqualified, but in this one they still got the win. She said she looked up and saw two purple girls next to each other in the passing zone and got confused. Might have been ideal not to line the St P’s teams up in neighboring lanes, but that would have taken away the fun of the B girls running next to each other. Plus L learned a lesson in a race that doesn’t matter.

I think it was good for C to get the leg win over L. She’s been L’s biggest fan the past two weeks. It’s been fun to watch her find L after a race with a big grin on her face to congratulate her. After one race last week we could see her saying, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know you were that fast!” But I know it bothers her some that her “little” sister – they are basically the same height now – is having success while she struggles (relatively speaking). I keep telling her the only reason she’s having a hard time is because she doesn’t have time to practice between kickball, soccer, and bad weather. I wish she would have two weeks to get a bunch of practices in before City, but this week is pretty much shot with other games. Hopefully we can get her stretched out and loosened up enough that she can run well in her relay(s) at City.

How did S and I react while C and L were racing each other? We took turns cheering for both. “Come on, C! Come on, L! Come on, B girls!” is what I said. S shouted “Faster, L, catch her! Faster, C, don’t let her catch you!” Good, clean family fun!

Weekend Kid Sports Roundup

April 19, 2021 /

We have a very busy sports week ahead – weather permitting – and my plan was to hold off on another kid sports update. But it turned out to be a fairly significant sports weekend, so I’ll go ahead and share our girls’ latest accomplishments on the fields of athletic battle.

Friday was M’s first-ever tennis match. I had not seen her hit a tennis ball since last September, when we went to a local court to hit together. That day she complained that my soft hits back to her weren’t how her instructor hit the ball, and thus she would just stand there and refuse to return them back to me. As you might imagine this did not go well and ended in yelling from dad and tears from daughter. I’ve refused to hit with her since then.

Despite that, with six months of lessons in between, I was cautiously optimistic.

She was slated to play doubles with another sophomore who was also in her first-ever match. When their time to play came, I set up shop with my mother-in-law behind their court. I talked to a friend while they were warming up so I didn’t obsess over how she was hitting the ball. But when I glanced over, she seemed to be doing well.

She had the first service game of the match. She got her first serve in and won the point. It took her two serves to get one in from the Ad side, but they won that point. Then they won the third point. She lost her second Ad-side serve, but she closed out the game from the Deuce side to go up 1–0.

Pretty good start!

Then they broke in the second game to go up 2–0. Her teammate lost her first service game but they broke again to go up 3–1.

This was outstanding!

Because there were so many matches, all the JV contests were a single set, winner being the side that won eight games first. I started doing the math. If they could just break even on service games they would win the match!

Stupid dad.

M lost her second service game without winning a point. By the time she served again they were down 3–5. She got up 40–15 but couldn’t close it out and they lost that game, and then the next two to lose the match 8–3.

A very promising start but disappointing ending. It seemed like she got tired, because she was hitting her later serves from shoulder-height and away from her body rather than above her head and straight up. Both she and her partner put a ton of balls into the net.

But the result wasn’t really about how they played. Once their opponents settled in, they started ripping winners all over the place. They were just better and deserved to win.

It was fun to see the four girls get along. M, her teammate, and their two opponents thanked each other when they threw balls across the net, got together to discuss close calls or scoring questions, and were laughing most of the time. They banged racquets with smiles on their faces after the match. Apparently some of the other matches weren’t nearly as friendly.

A few of M’s friends lost their matches 0–8, so she was pleased they at least won a few games.

All-in-all, it was a good start. Because of the size of the team we’re not sure how often she will get to play. While most schools are keeping extra girls this year, there’s no guarantee that every duo of sophomores will get a match each time CHS plays. She’s having a lot of fun both playing and being part of the team.

Plus, she thinks the uniforms are super cute, which is a bonus.[1]

Sunday was C’s and L’s first track meet of the year. Which meant it was L’s first-ever track meet.

They got a perfect day to run: sunny, in the low 60s, no wind. And they were running on a good high school track so it was an ideal setting.

L ran the 50, 200, 100, and the opening leg of the medley relay. She won all three of her individual heats and her foursome won their relay. She didn’t just win, she won all of her heats fairly easily.

Although the heats were unseeded, she always ran in heat #1, and was usually against girls that were much taller than her. In the 50 she got a great start and was never threatened. In the 200, she was in third place coming out of the turn and then blew everyone away in the second 100. And in the 100, she was tight with two other girls in the opening 40–50 meters and then pulled away at the end.

It was impressive. She had been telling me how good she ran at practice, and I knew she was fast. But I wanted to reserve judgement until I saw her race other girls. She confirmed that she has some wheels.

Since the heats were unseeded, not every school had their best runner in the first heat. Her teammate A – one of her best friends – always ran in the second heat, and she won each of them. L is usually faster than A but it would have been fun to see them run against each other. Although this way they both got wins.[2] And there was a girl who won her heats in the 100 and 200 very easily. It’s obvious she was fast, but since she was running against slower girls it was hard to know if she was faster than L. They will run against each other eventually and we’ll find out, I guess.

After she won the 200, as I was walking down to the tent to find her, St P’s parents were coming over and tapping fists and congratulating me. Safe to say homegirl made an impression on folks. Which will do wonders for her ego. Her between-race strut got more pronounced after each win. She’s one of those kids who doesn’t just enjoy competing but also the attention that comes with it.

Oh, and L’s relay has a chance to be special. L ran the opening 100, A ran the 200, and a girl who knocked 45 seconds off the school record in the mile ran the anchor 400. The fourth girl who ran the second 100 has good speed, too. We had a lead through the first 150 meters, but were down about five seconds going into the anchor. No worries, our girl rocked it out and we won by 10 seconds. With three weeks to practice handoffs and maybe tweak the order a little, those girls could be a menace by the time City rolls around.

C has missed a ton of track practice because of kickball and soccer, so she only ran one individual race and in one relay. She ran the 200, which she finished second in at City two years ago, but was in a slow heat since she didn’t have a preliminary time from practice. She won it easily. Then she ran the 200 leg of the medley relay. She looked good in the opening 150, passing two girls in the turn, but faded in the last 50 and handed off in second. Her anchor bailed her out with a dominant 400 so C was perfect on the day, too. She’s still fast, she just needs to get in better track shape so she can sustain her speed more than running first-to-home in kickball.

Pretty good weekend for the B girls! L has a kickball game tonight that will likely determine who wins their division, then two more later in the week. C has two kickball games this week. There is a chance of snow – that’s right, snow! – in Indy tomorrow so we’ll see if the two games scheduled for that night get postponed to warmer days.

  1. I would laugh at her but I’m the kind of idiot who complains all season when KU has bad uniforms (like the past two years) and texts friends when I see a team wearing sweet duds.  ↩
  2. Looks like there are no official results, but the St P’s coaches are manually putting together results that compare times across heats that they will share later this week.  ↩

Spring Sports, Pt. 1

April 15, 2021 /

We are about 10 days into the spring CYO sports schedules, which means we are at roughly the halfway point of those compact seasons. Here’s a quick look at how the family has done so far.

Both C and L are two games into their kickball seasons, with a third game rained out for each team.

L’s team is 2–0. They won their first game by 10 runs against a team that is usually pretty good. She had a magnificent day: 4–5 with three home runs and 10 RBIs. The gold star moment of that game came in the fifth inning. She came up with the bases loaded twice. Both times she kicked monster grand slams. Call her Fernando Tatis (senior), I guess!

They played again last night and romped to a 37-run win in five innings. It could have been much worse. In the top of the first our first two kickers both made outs before we scored 11-straight runs. In the third inning we went scoreless. Because of Covid the inning run rule has been bumped down from 20 to 14. They scored 13 in three innings. Seriously, they could have won by 60 under the old run rules and without that one bad inning.

L went 4–6 with two more home runs.

They play their biggest game of the year next Monday. The winner will likely be division champs and move onto the City championship in May.

C’s team is 1–1. In our first game – I am again helping to coach – we played the team that has been our nemesis for three years. The same team we beat in dramatic fashion last fall in what we thought would be the 8th graders’ final game. So of course we had to play them to start this unexpected spring season! We scored 11 in the top of the first and were never really threatened, winning by five. It was the least drama we’ve had in five or six games against this school since fifth grade. C went 3–4 with two triples and a double. The bummer about the 8th grade league is even if you kick the crap out of the ball, like she did, the defense can get it back in and hold you short of a home run. Even with her speed she got stuck on third.

Tuesday they played St L, a school that we’ve taken turns winning and losing close games against for the past four years. It was another close one, but we had a bad defensive inning in the top of the 7th and lost by seven. The head coach and I had our first run-in with an umpire this season, arguing about a rule she was interpreting incorrectly that cost us an important out. We would have lost anyway but we both get super bothered with the damn umpires don’t know the rules.

C went 3–4 again with two home runs.

So the B girls are kicking the shit out of the ball so far!

C is also playing CYO soccer. It’s become a St P’s tradition for 8th graders who either have never played soccer or haven’t played for years to join the team and play just for fun. C hasn’t played since fourth or fifth grade, but wanted to jump in and give it a shot. Before her first game S told her if she scored a goal this year, we would let her get her ear cartilage pierced. Some other parents heard this and had mixed reactions. A few thought this was a terrible idea because then their kids would want the same thing. A few others started telling their kids to pass to C so she could score. I think it was more to see if S would follow through than to help C get what she wants.

In her first game, a 6–0 win, she didn’t have any chances. She’s missed a couple games because of kickball, but got a chance to play last Thursday. I was with L at kickball but apparently C had a great chance to score and just swung too early, putting what should have been a sure goal over the crossbar. Her team is really good – they are 3–0 – and I have a feeling the boys that score most of the goals will start looking for her when the game in no longer in doubt.

Most importantly she’s having a really good time. She quit playing soccer because she had gotten kicked hard a few times and wasn’t enjoying it as much. She actually looks forward to the practices and games. It helps that she’s on a solid team.

Both girls are also running track. Their first meet will be this Sunday. C will run the 200, the 800 (which she’s not happy about), and one relay. L is running for the first time ever and has, apparently, dominated the sprints at practice. Each night she gets in the car and tells me how good she is. She’s going through a not-very-humble phase. There are a couple pretty quick girls in her class, and she’s always been fast on the kickball bases. But we won’t know how fast she really is until we see her in a meet. She’s running the 50, 100, and 200 this week.

We are busy! It’s kind of nice that kickball will wrap up in the middle of track so the girls will have a couple weeks to concentrate on running and get ready for City.

Those are the middle schoolers. M is playing tennis at CHS, and her first match is tomorrow. She’s been taking lessons, either privately or with a group, for seven months. I hope they pay off enough that she can at least get her serves in and win a few points. Luckily since last spring was wiped out, most schools are keeping all their sophomores and there will be a lot of chances to play other girls who have limited experience.

End of the Sports Year

May 16, 2019 /

We wrapped up the spring kid sports season last night with the City track finals.

C had a very good night.

She first ran in the final of the 400. Looking at the preliminary times I figured her best chance for a high placement was in the 200. She was fighting a cold and coughing/sneezing a lot, so I told her before this race that if she was struggling it was ok to back off and save some strength for the 200.

I regretted that advice when she fell into 8th place – out of eight runners – at about the 200 meter mark. But she battled back and caught the girl who passed her pretty quickly, then ran down another girl before the finish. I actually thought she was 7th at first and didn’t realize she was 6th until I saw the official results. A spot lower than where she qualified, but she also dropped almost two seconds off her best time so it was a great run.

The finals meet moves quick so she only had about 10 minutes before she started staging for the 200. I reminded her how the top five runners were all within a second in qualifying – she was fifth – and she was fully capable of catching the girls in front of her.

She’s usually a slow starter and runs people down late, but she got off to a great start and was fourth coming into the main stretch. She passed one girl and then had a very strong final 50 to finish third, just behind the second place runner. Her time was actually slower than her prelim time but jumping up to top three was awesome! Especially since this was only the second time she had run the 200 in a meet. As a bonus, she beat a girl who shares her name who had beaten her in every race they had matched up in this year.[1]

She was very happy when I caught up to her, a big smile on her face as she accepted high fives from teammates and friends. I made sure she had one more 200 in her, as she had the third leg of the medley relay.

We knew that relay would be trouble. The first two 100 legs would likely put us in a hole. And the 400 leg would be against the fastest 800/1600 runner in the state. There was just a little pressure on C to have a good run.

As expected we were in fourth – of five – teams when C got the stick. I wish I would have clocked her because she freaking blew the doors off her 200. She caught two girls before she finished the turn, passed the leader with 75 meters to go, and absolutely destroyed the last 50. When she passed it off to the anchor we had about a 30 yard lead. I’m pretty sure I lost most of my voice yelling at her during this run.

Our anchor is faster than C in the 400, and a stubborn, hyper-competitive spit-fire, as her mom calls her. She tried her hardest and held the lead for about 300 meters. But the girl chasing her had knocked five seconds off a 15-year old meet record in the 1600 earlier in the day. She’s just a freakishly good and fast runner. She caught us at the end of turn four and our anchor just didn’t have enough to chase her down. We finished second by nearly two seconds. The team that won the other heat was almost eight seconds faster than our girls, so they finished third overall.

It was a great end to C’s first year in track. I’ve mentioned this many times when sharing her cross country exploits, but she runs a little funny. Very powerful, choppy steps that aren’t terribly efficient. But they move her quickly so we haven’t messed with it. Her track coaches have worked with her a little on her form, focusing on getting her to use her arms more, saying that the legs will follow if she can learn to pump the upper body. Several people came up to me last night and said, “She was really using her arms in the relay!” So looks like she’s making progress.

I was thrilled with her finishes yesterday. I’m happy that she really enjoys track. But what I love most is what I mentioned in the footnote about the girl she beat in the 200. Any time she’s staging for a race, you see her talking to the girls next to her. Afterward I’ll ask what they were talking about and she’ll say, “Oh, we were just talking. She’s really nice.” I love how even though she’s competitive she almost always sees the good in others. There are some girls she will tell us are mean, but she stays away from them. I hope those girls she does talk to are telling their parents that C is nice, too.

And now the calendar is clear! No practices, no games. We do have kickball evaluations next week, but those are after school. No running anyone around until C starts cross country in July.

  1. I will note that C says her namesake is very nice and I like how they are always chatting and smiling before and after races.  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 13, 2019 /

It was a pretty quiet weekend for us.

Friday was the annual St. P’s eighth grade Mother’s Mass. All the eighth graders and their moms got dressed up, had a special Mass first thing in the day followed by a brunch at school. Then they were excused for the day to go do stuff together. The girls all went to Top Golf and then a bakery to get treats.[1] Although I handle a lot of the mom duties in our house, S did take this one and I believe both she and M had a really good day. M got her hair and nails done the night before, which along with her new dress and shoes made her happy. All this was prelude to the really big day, her eighth grade graduation at the end of the month.

After school Friday L and I rushed over to a neutral school for her kickball playoff game to see who won their division. We gave up nine runs in the top of the first and then our lead-off kicker got tagged out at third when she tried to be sneaky. But we went on to score 11 in that inning, had a couple great defensive innings to create some space, and ended up winning 41–17. They play for the City championship later today.

They did not play quite as well as they played the previous game, when they beat the same team by 28. But they still played really well. L’s performance at the plate was not as impressive, either. Only one home run along with a couple doubles and a long, loud, three-run single. But I was really happy with how she noticed where the good fielders were and tried to kick away from them, sacrificing power for making sure she got on base. That’s easy to do when you’ve played a team three times. I’m telling her to just kick it as hard as she can today.

Saturday, on a clear and cold morning, we hustled downtown to the IUPUI track stadium for the preliminary heats of the City track championships. It was in the mid–40s when we got there, which was great for running but not so fun for watching the runners. The kids did not seem impressed when we told them people like Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Florence Griffin Joyner had run on this track. Kids!

C got her wish and was switched from the 800 to the 200. She had not run the 200 at a meet but they run a ton of them in practice she we hoped she was ready. In the 400 she got placed in the fast heat and finished fourth, which was good enough for fifth overall and a place in the finals. Then in the 200, she smoked her heat to win it by two seconds. That was again good for fifth overall. But while she’s five seconds behind the fastest time in the 400, the top six girls in the 200 are all within a second of each other. She got a little ragged in the last 20 meters but if she can hold that together, she can be right in it.

The finals are Wednesday night. She will also run a relay race then so it will be a full night for her.

One of the highlights of the track meet was the one final that was run that morning, the 1600 for 3rd and 4th graders. One of L’s good friends was competing and ran a great race. Until she got confused about the finish line and came to a stop about 50 yards early. Luckily her coach was near her and started yelling at her to get moving again. One girl passed her but she somehow got back up to speed quick enough to catch her and finish third. We were across the track and all screaming and laughing at the same time. When she came over after she had a big, goofy grin on her face. We made sure all the other kids knew where the finish line was after that.

But the really big news of the weekend is that I got a cold. “How is that big news?” I can hear you asking. Well, it’s been over two years since I’ve had a cold. I have no idea what I have or have not been doing that launched this extraordinary streak. There have been many times over the last two winters when I felt a scratch in my throat or a touch of the sniffles and thought, “Here we go,” only for them to pass the next day. But this time it reached up and grabbed me pretty good. I’ll admit I was a big baby about it, barely moving off the couch on Sunday. Fortunately there was a lot of good sports on TV so I could focus on those. In my defense, though, S looked at me a couple times and said, “Wow, you look terrible.” Glad my look matched how I felt.

As I said, a pretty boring weekend.

  1. Apparently the boys and their moms drove an hour to go do paintball out in the middle of nowhere.  ↩
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