Ready to Go
Busy Week
This was a busy week! Here was my schedule:
Tuesday: League Championship Series Loss
Wednesday: Minor Tournament Game
Thursday: League Champions Victory
Friday: Tournament of Champions Practice
Saturday 10AM: Tournament of Champions Practice
Saturday Noon: Minor Tournament Game Umpire
Saturday 6PM: Tournament of Champions Practice
Sunday: Rays vs. White Sox Game
Monday: First Tournament of Champions Game
We are Ready
Our girls could not be more ready. They catch every fly ball , field every grounder, and throw accurately. We have done all we can do. Now, it’s time to execute. You never know who will show up, but I am pretty sure they want it, that means they will be focused. They certainly acted like it today at their third practice in less than 24 hours.
Proud to Have Been Part of Their Life
Either way, I am so proud of how far they have come I can’t stop beaming. This is the culmination of years of working with this group of girls. They are 12 now, and this is our year. This is what we have worked for, they know it, they want it, they have heart. They can do it, win or lose they are a success and I am proud to have been a small part of their life.
Go Flames!
An Air of Confidence
As we practiced for our tournament of champions tonight our team had that swagger back. A parent in the stands remarked, "they look good tonight, they are playing with a lot of confidence ". How crucial is that in our sport? Essential! It doesn’t guarantee victory, but it assures a chance at it. If you lack confidence in softball , you might as well stay home, you are done.
We practice twice tomorrow. I wonder if they can maintain this passion? I think they will, they are really starting to gel. A third of the team is sleeping over one of the girls houses, this is great. They all showed up tonight after a long game last night with smiles on their faces, smiles go a long way! Hopefully we will do the same.
Play Like You Know You Can
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Worthy Opponent
First, I would like to thank our opponent and congratulate them on being such a formidable opponent. We play a five game series to determine who will represent our league in a district-wide Tournament of Champions (TOC) and it took five games to determine a winner! They were truly a worthy opponent. Young too, they will be VERY good next year.
Girls Showed Up
Tonight our girls decided they were going to play as good as they are truly capable of. It was an awesome spectacle to watch. While we had struggled holding it together in prior games, tonight they were clicking on all cylinders. Our pitcher was on all night, and we made all the routine plays we are supposed to make. Our hitting rarely fails us, and tonight that was the case again, so we hit well and scored 10 runs.
It was fun to sit back and watch the confidence they played with tonight. I hope they take that confidence into the TOC next week. Do you have a story of confidence? Please share it.
The Calm Weekend Before the Storm!
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That Time of the Year
It is that time of the year! Wrapping up the seasons, cramming games into the end of the year and praying for no rain! (Though we really could use rain here, how about only rain after 10PM?). Every league is pretty much the same this time of the year and things really start to get fun.
Sit Back and Enjoy
This is the time where a coach gets to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labors. I told a couple of people the other day that "you will see things you didn’t think possible over the next couple of weeks". The middle of the season starts to drag a bit, and the kids drop off here and there, but introduce tournaments, top teams, championships, and trophies and suddenly they focus! Not only do they focus, they actually implement what you have been teaching them all year! That’s the fun part!
The Inevitable Upset
Inevitably a team that hasn’t won very many games knocks someone off, a kid that hasn’t hit all year gets in a game winning situation and succeeds! A pitcher that a manager is forced into using strikes out a home run king. I kid that has never caught a fly ball in his life makes a diving catch. These times is fun!!!!!!!
My Schedule
Here is my schedule, I am sure you can relate:
Tuesday: Top Team Tournament Game
Wednesday: Minor Tournament Game
Thursday: Top Team Tournament Game
Friday: Practice
Saturday: 2 Practices
Sunday: Practice
Monday: Potential Minor Tournament Game/Potential Tournament of Champions Game
Tuesday: Potential Minor Tournament Game/Potential Tournament of Champions Game
Wednesday: Potential Minor Tournament Game/Potential Tournament of Champions Game
Thursday: Potential Minor Tournament Game/Potential Tournament of Champions Game
It doesn’t stop there, I am just not sure where it goes!
Play Ball
The great thing about this time of year, the kids know what they are doing today. Playing ball! Tomorrow? Playing ball!, the next day? Playing ball! They tend to stay very focused.
10 Minutes of Mourning
To all out there who are entering your busy time, good luck! But remember to look over at your kids 10 minutes after you lose or are eliminated, what are they doing? Running around playing w/ the other team w/ smiles on their faces of course!!!!
How busy is your schedule? Let’s hear it!
About to Get Busy!
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Our President and VP’s attended the District Tournament of Champions (TOC) meeting tonight. The TOC is a tournament between the major league champions from each league in the district. They are played with all-star rules. This is a fun tournament, but very time consuming! It preps each league for all-stars though.
While we have this going on, our season continues because school let out late this year, we have a minor league in house tournament in baseball and softball as well. So our fields will be very very busy! As will our concessions!
My posting will continue, but I will move to reflections on things I see around the fields and the districts. Likewise, they will get shorter because I simply won’t have enough time to devote to long posts! If you have a guest post to submit, now would be the time to do it! Email to rick@thelittleleaguecoach.com.
Does your league hold any special district tournaments? If so, how do they work?
Rough Night
Tonight was a rough night, but every team must endure this at some point I guess. At least we aren’t the Patriots! They have to live w/ it all year, we just have to live with it until our game next week.
The Set Up
Our league is very small. We have only two teams in each of the key divisions. Because of this, we are required to interleague with other leagues and we are left to our own devices to determine a champion within our own league at each division. Our league has chosen to select its champion using a head-to-head mechanism. The important part of winning the league championship is that the district plays a “tournament of champions” at the end of the year and crowns a district champion from the regular season teams. This is every teams goal at the beginning of the season.
Last Game
Our teams play each other five times during the course of the year. Two to start the season, three to end it. Winning the first two games would be huge! We took care of business the first game winning 7-3 pretty handily. Our pitching was suspect going into the season, but one of our players has decided she is a star now and is playing as such. She pitched a 3 hitter and we won the game.
Tonight
As often is the case, tonight was a different story. We started out a little rough w/ a couple of throwing errors and a few walks and boom, down 4-0 in the first. I wasn’t all that concerned, because we can typically score. Our offense is great, but they have a pretty good young pitcher, but we should still hit her. We did fight back and went up in the 5th 6-5. They came back and were up 7-6 going into the last inning. We didn’t score, oh well.
One of Those Nights
It was one of those nights where nothing I did went right. Every call I made backfired. Rather than try and steal 3rd, I chose to bunt the runner home from second. You can do this w/ a good bunt and steal. I call it a “bunt and run”. The runner takes off from 2nd and the batter bunts, by the time they throw down to first, the runner is headed home and scores. Unfortunately, two girls in a row were unable to get a bunt down. (they both happen to be my daughters which makes it worse) Oh well, such is life in Little League.
On to the Future
For the next 14 games or so we play the other league’s teams. There is no real reward for beating them and they are a great place to train your players and get pitchers some work. By the time we get back to playing our league rival, we should be in tip top shape. The last three games of the year should be fun!
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