Travel Baseball 2013

[Chas]

After a month of weekly pitching and batting lessons, and then several practices we played our first loooong scrimmage game. Although it really was only 4 innings.

Pitchers did not live up to what they have been doing, but this is mostly just getting over nerves, which we also had on defense. The bad news is that we gave up 17 runs in the 4 innings. The good news is that we were crushing the ball into the outfield and aggressively stealing. We crossed the plate 25 times.

Another scrimmage is scheduled for Tuesday if the weather doesnt go to crap. We need it as we decided to play a one day tournament on the 16th. The problem now is that we are a brand new 9AA team and will be playing 10AAA and 10MAJ teams so it could be ugly for us.

Chas

 

[Chas]

Played a 4 inning scrimmage last night against our in town 10U team and we won 16-9. Great momentum heading into a tournament, but the competion on Saturday is going to be brutal.

 

[Chas]

First tournament in the books, and we made a good showing, especially considering we were missing two great players due to basketball.

The first game we lost 14-10. We completely outhit the other team, and I think our pitchers looked good too. What we do not have is experience, and the difference between a new 9yo team playing against 10yo is huge right now. We could/should have won this game, but made way too many defensive and mental errors. As an example. Bases loaded, 2 outs, not holding runners on. For some reason P does pickoff move and throws into RF, and by the time the play was over they added 3. The batter struck out, so we basically gave them 3 for free in a tight game.

The other two games were agains the super elite 10you powerhouses and we played well, but of course defeated pretty handily. The good part is that we will likely not have to play this high level of competition much, and we will be much better every week as the season progresses.

 

[Chas]

We thought we were going to be very competitive last weekend but got rained out. Playing a one day event tomorrow in Savannah, specifially 9U so we have a good chance of winning. Unfortunately 2 of our top pitchers out sick. Roman is one of them, we are hoping we advance and he will be OK for the semis and champ which will be in the evening.

Of course it was 60-70 degrees for two months here, and now that we start playing baseball games it gets cold I shouldnt say anything because soon enough it will be 95 with 100% humidity.

 

[Kevin Kenneally]

We thought we were going to be very competitive last weekend but got rained out. Playing a one day event tomorrow in Savannah, specifially 9U so we have a good chance of winning. Unfortunately 2 of our top pitchers out sick. Roman is one of them, we are hoping we advance and he will be OK for the semis and champ which will be in the evening.

Of course it was 60-70 degrees for two months here, and now that we start playing baseball games it gets cold I shouldnt say anything because soon enough it will be 95 with 100% humidity.

Guess the EC rolls have been terrible for sometime?

 

[Chas]

Last weekend the weather was very cold, also had several players with the flu. We did manage to beat our rivals, but we were easily beat in the semi finals by a team we had previously beaten pretty handily.

Sat was much different though. Had 11 of the 12 players and the weather was in the 60s. It was a one day tournament, so 12 hours and five games later we were in the trophy ceremony. This was great for our kids, but we got second place. We allowed 12 runs on 2 base hits to lose the championship game. The best game was against a program team (have teams at every age group) called Cage Baseball. Man, they were good. We were down 5-1 in the semi finals against them and came back to win 9-6. We were told by the scorekeeper that X inning was the last based on time, thought we won the game 7-6. The other coach argued and I guess there were 2 minutes left so we had to start another inning. We added 2 runs and then held them off. Great game.

 

[Chas]

Played in the St. Patricks Day Bash. Started off bad. We were missing players and the joke was those that were there were hung over.

However, once elimination games started we clicked. Dominated the #3 and #1 Seeds, not even close games. Then lost an 8-6 nailbiter to the #2 seed. As the week before, too many errors were our downfall. We outhit the other team, but gave them too many runs.

But, another trophy and we are learning how to win.

 

[Chas]

Team Trophy Pic

 

[Chas]

Been a while since I sent an update.

Took a couple of weeks off and then played last week. Went undefeated and won the tournament. 16 base hits in the championship game. Note we had to take the attached picture very quick as it was thundering and lightning and about 30 second after click it started to pour.

At one point our top two pitchers combined for 6 innings, 71% strikes, 14 Ks, 1 BB.

1-1 in the current tournament playing against 10U. We have 3 tough teams in front of us to win this tournament. Yesterday we pitched 9 different players and our only loss was 7-6 in a game we should have won.

We are currently the #4 ranked 9AA team in Georgia but this can change significantly week to week. We are 4-0 in games that count for this, 12-12 overall but half of those games against older teams.

Oddly, we actually had a coach complain about this yesterday to me and the umpire and the umpire had to politely tell him to shut up. We play every kid every game. Almost every team we face only plays their top 9 or 10. This guy was complaining that we were playing every player. I couldn't believe it. So we are beating you, and you think I should only be playing my top 9!!!????

Little league started as well and we are 2-0. Only pitch Roman as the closer. It almost isn't fair. I joked with him that do you really need 10 pitches to strike out the side. He is averaging about 48mph only throwing about 70-80% power but getting consistent at always over %60 strikes. He turns it up to over 50mph at times. What is making him so effective is that his changeups are nasty and is making the batters look silly. He can throw a Knuckle change, circle change, and horseshoe grip. In warmups each time he figures out which one he is "on" with and goes with it. To 9U and rec ball players the knuckle and horseshoe look like curve balls even though they are not.

Hopefully we are on today.

Chas

 

[Chas]

That tournament looked so promising. But we blew a 9-2 lead and lost in extra innings Very tough way to get knocked out of a tournament we had a great chance of winning.

This week should be interesting. We are playing a large event that has nothing but powerhouse teams, mostly from Florida. Unfortunately my #1 catcher has a sprained thumb and our #4 batter will not be there on Saturday. Regardless should help us get better by playing against better competition.

 

[Chas]

Well, we found out the powerhouse teams really weren't better than us talent wise. However, we also found out that 8am games, and even though in our home city fields that are an hour away don't work for us. We lost one, tied one (no extra innings in pool play), and lost the first elimination game. But here is the kicker for that game. Our pitchers: 64% strikes, 10K, 4BB, 4 hits allowed. Their pitchers: 49% strikes 8K, 9BB, 9 hits allowed. Somehow we lost 11-7. The parents were all in. We drove back to RH, occupied a field and ran them for about 2 hours. All BB focused, when they didn't hustle they earned another "pole". Run to the foul pole and back. We ended up looking real good, too bad we didn't play that way.

Our tournament this weekend has us up against two of our rivals in pool games, one currently ranked 4th in the state. We are currently ranked 7th.

 

[Chas]

Another Championship ring with another undefeated weekend!!!
The team everyone thought was going to win the tournament, well we played them twice and won 11-2 and 9-2. Simply put, our pitching was dominating and we played very good defense.

The Vipers are now #2 ranked 9AA team in Georgia!!!

 

[Chas]

Second week in a row undefeated and tournament champs. We won 13-11, 18-2, 8-3, 12-4. Overall we were dominating both offensively and pitching wise. For the 4 games our pitchers combined for 62% strikes, 29Ks and only 9BB. These are sick #s for 9yos. The game we won 8-3 was against a super offensive team. Roman had never faced them before so he started that game. Through 4 innings only allowed 2 hits and 2 unearned runs.

We remain the #2 team in GA, but are also ranked #19 nationally.

 

[Chas]

Latest Champ Photo

 

[horseshoe]

Impressive on being the #2 in GA and #19 in the country. Something those kids will always remember..

 

[Chas]

Not really

We are now #1 in Georgia!!!!!!!! and #11 in the nation.

This week we are playing up in age group for some different challenges.

 

[Chas]

Playing up against the 10s day one was interesting. We were not sharp after the long layoff, and then heavy rain from the tropical storm limited our practice this week.

Even so, we took the first game 8-3, leaving the bases loaded 3 times. We could have blown that one wide open. Second game was against a powerful Chain team. Winner would take #1 seed and have a much better road to the championship. What can one really say about how we played. We were winning 8-3, top of last inning. The game was over several times with us winning with routine plays, but we didn't make them. By the time the epic meltdown was over we lost 16-8.

I am hoping this is a wakeup and helps us get our edge back. Of course, now if we win first elimination game we will be matched up against another powerhouse team in the semi finals.

 

[Chas]

Ended up playing well and going 2-2 against the 10yo teams. I thought we would struggle a little at the plate. However, we raised our team batting avg from .337 to .342 during the 4 games. We could have gone 4-0 and won the tournament had we not made errors in consecutive order to give two big innings in the losses.

Traveling to South Carolina today to play older and better teams again. First game is against a powerhouse 10AAA team, and the #1 10AA team in SC is in the tournament, so could play them as well.

 

[Chas]

Played well in SC, even had a bunch of people talking about our team and how good we are. Battled into the 10AA champ game but lost 3-2. Had a runner on 3B, 2 outs, bottom of 6th and Roman crushed a line drive, but the SS jumped and snatched it out of the air.

The state tournament starts tomorrow, and hopefully playing up the last coupe of weeks has helped us prepare.

 

[Chas]

Playing up against the 10s helped. We completely dominated winning the two pool play games by a combined score of 30-9.

We advanced to the final 2 teams, against our rivals who knocked us out of the state tournament last year in machine pitch. The format was a best of 3 which made it interesting.
However, worrying about a 3rd game became irrelevant. Our top pitcher and Roman each pitched complete games, combining to strike out 14 and only allow 3 hits. We won 6-1 and 11-3. Neither game really seemed in doubt as we amassed 18 hits to their 3.

Only 4 teams left and play in Atlanta this weekend for the state championship. Looks like we will start out right off the bat against a powerhouse from the Atl area, so it will be a huge challenge for us.