It was an honorable defeat!
After falling behind 7-0 after the 3rd inning we battled back to a final 8-7 count. Eli had a great hit at the bottom of the ninth, but the Spiders fielded it too well for us. It was a good game for Eli, with nice contact and good fielding action.
We coaches were very happy to see players swinging! Sure, it's best to swing at strikes, but good things happen when players swing. We got good hits off some definite balls!
We had routinely great fielding from our pitchers (Mac, Neil, Chris), 2nd (Neil, Mac) and 1st (Chris, Collin, Luke). Collin had our first single man double play of the season.
We had good success with bat control by assigning one player each inning to be 'guardian of the bats'. We also had improved bench control by asking 2-3 players individually to be good examples for their teammates. We'll continue both measures.
Next game we're going to ask a parent volunteer to track special plays and hits, so we can mention them at a post-game huddle. It's hard for us to keep track of them. Thank you to our parent volunteers who verified the score and coached 1st base, and to Neil's Dad for snacks. Thanks also to parents who gave us advanced notice that their players would be away.
Advanced notice is everything. One of our most time consuming tasks is preparing batting order and fielding positions; advance notice makes that time pay off.
As per a prior post we've updated the HGRA Majors Bandits 2008 Positions document (see link on left side of page). I still need jersey numbers for Luke MT, John Akimoto and Michael Brauns as they were absent today. I've put treat dates on the document so you can see when you're do. I'll try to fill in more dates by email and at practice. Take a look and send me your choices!
See everyone on Tuesday, have a safe and fun holiday weekend.
