This season was supposed to be L and her team\u2019s final run to kickball glory. Even with a tough schedule we figured they would be battling in every game and, because of the strength of their division, remain in the mix for a City championship berth right up until the end of the season.<\/p>\n
Instead it\u2019s been a bit of a mess.<\/p>\n
Things started well; they won their first two games. They beat a solid team by one, scoring six runs in the bottom of the 7th to comeback for the W on opening day. Next they run-ruled a perennially bad team. Then everything went to shit.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve had three straight run-rule losses. They\u2019ve lost by 26, 31, and 27 in four-and-a-half innings each time. In the last two games we\u2019ve been behind 14–0 and 13–1 after one inning. What we used to do to other teams is now being done to us. Paybacks, etc\u2026<\/p>\n
Our coach, who is perpetually sunny and upbeat, looked at me after last night\u2019s beatdown and asked, \u201cWhat is wrong with us?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer is pretty simple: the three teams that have beaten us all have players that look like young women while ours still look like kids. Last night we had a right fielder playing literally in the bushes that bordered the field and St J was still kicking the ball over her head. The three teams that have crushed us all had 4–5 girls who could not only blast the ball, but place it in the right spot. They either found the holes between our outfielders, or knew which of our girls had zero chance to catch anything kicked at her and sent balls her way. I think we\u2019ve given up more home runs in those three games than we\u2019ve given up in two or three seasons combined. <\/p>\n
We also make a lot of small defensive errors that turn innings into bad ones. Last night in one inning L over-ran a ball and allowed it to drop, another girl dropped an easy fly ball, and two other girls ran into each other and allowed a ball to drop. Instead of only giving up 4–5 runs, we gave up the limit of 14. That\u2019s been the story in every big inning this year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile we have no one who can kick anymore. L gets on base consistently (she\u2019s 15–19 so far) but hasn\u2019t kicked a home run all year. Or really been close to one. This is the same kid who had 22 home runs in a season 18 months ago. She can\u2019t kick as far as she used to and the outfielders are better at this age, so on the rare occasion she gets ahold of one, they still hold her to a double or triple. None of our other girls who used to boot the ball are doing any better. I think we\u2019ve had only two or three home runs all season, and have only had one 14-run inning. <\/p>\n
There are two games left in their season. We play St B\u2019s, the team we beat by one, on Tuesday and then the team that waxed us last night on Wednesday. I would like to hope that St J\u2019s would take it easy on us in our final home game, but they have a one-game lead for the division and can\u2019t afford to slip up. We are just hoping we can beat St B\u2019s on Tuesday to get one more win before the girls hang up their kickball visors for the last time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This season was supposed to be L and her team\u2019s final run to kickball glory. Even with a tough schedule we figured they would be battling in every game and, because of the strength of their division, remain in the mix for a City championship berth right up until the end of the season. Instead it\u2019s been a bit of a mess. Things started well; they won their first two games. They beat a solid team by one, scoring six runs in the bottom of the 7th to comeback for the W on opening day. Next they run-ruled a perennially bad team. Then everything went to shit. They\u2019ve had three straight run-rule losses. They\u2019ve lost by 26, 31, and 27 in four-and-a-half innings each time. In the last two games we\u2019ve been behind 14–0 and 13–1 after one inning. What we used to do to other teams is now being done to us. Paybacks, etc\u2026 Our coach, who is perpetually sunny and upbeat, looked at me after last night\u2019s beatdown and asked, \u201cWhat is wrong with us?\u201d The answer is pretty simple: the three teams that have beaten us all have players that look like young women while ours still look like kids. Last night we had a right fielder playing literally in the bushes that bordered the field and St J was still kicking the ball over her head. The three teams that have crushed us all had 4–5 girls who could not only blast the ball, but place it in the right spot. They either found the holes between our outfielders, or knew which of our girls had zero chance to catch anything kicked at her and sent balls her way. I think we\u2019ve given up more home runs in those three games than we\u2019ve given up in two or three seasons combined. We also make a lot of small defensive errors that turn innings into bad ones. Last night in one inning L over-ran a ball and allowed it to drop, another girl dropped an easy fly ball, and two other girls ran into each other and allowed a ball to drop. Instead of only giving up 4–5 runs, we gave up the limit of 14. That\u2019s been the story in every big inning this year. Meanwhile we have no one who can kick anymore. L gets on base consistently (she\u2019s 15–19 so far) but hasn\u2019t kicked a home run all year. Or really been close to one. This is the same kid who had 22 home runs in a season 18 months ago. She can\u2019t kick as far as she used to and the outfielders are better at this age, so on the rare occasion she gets ahold of one, they still hold her to a double or triple. None of our other girls who used to boot the ball are doing any better. I think we\u2019ve had only two or three home runs all season, and have only had one 14-run inning. There are two games left in their season. We play St B\u2019s, the team we beat by one, on Tuesday and then the team that waxed us last night on Wednesday. I would like to hope that St J\u2019s would take it easy on us in our final home game, but they have a one-game lead for the division and can\u2019t afford to slip up. We are just hoping we can beat St B\u2019s on Tuesday to get one more win before the girls hang up their kickball visors for the last time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[98,30],"class_list":["post-11372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kickball","tag-youth-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11373,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11372\/revisions\/11373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}