This past weekend we trekked down to San Jose for our 3rd of 4 tournaments!  I can’t believe our summer ball season is coming to end!  Sporty has had soooo much fun playing competitive softball.  And her skills have improved dramatically in the 6 weeks that she’s been playing.

The girls played incredibly this past weekend.  In fact, they didn’t have any of those 0-15 or 0-19 blowouts against them.  They lost their first game by a few runs and tied their second two games Saturday.  This was their first tournament where walks were allowed and there was no coach pitch to save them from those 4 balls but they held their own and their bats came alive this weekend!  They were also able to steal to 2nd and 3rd bases.  It was really exciting to watch.

Sporty got to play catcher and pitch.  Pitching, well we still have a lot of work to do, it wasn’t as bad as her Burlingame tournament outing but not as good as her Pleasanton pitching outing.  But as a catcher, she killed it!  She was on it and loved trying to throw the runners out that took big leads on 3rd.  And Sporty got her first fast pitch hit off of probably one of the fastest and most accurate pitchers in the first round of playoffs.  She started a rally which brought them within 1 run of the other team.  They ended up losing in the first round but that team went on to win the whole tournament so there was no shame in that loss.  And truthfully, they should have and could have won.

This weekend is our last tournament and while I’m super glad to have our weekends back (being at a field at 7am that is an hour away is BRUTAL!), I will miss the games and the experience of travel ball.  It’s a great group of girls and parents so I am definitely glad we had this experience.  Sporty is sad to see it end too, she told me on the way to practice last night that she is sad to see it end and wishes there were more tournaments to play in.  She’s hungry for a Sunday win so that they can keep progressing in the tournament to make this season last longer.  I know Young Jedi will be happy to NOT have to sit at softball fields ALL day long!  We owe him a few solids to make up for the long hot days he’s spent pretending to watch his sister (those popsicle and snow cone bribes only get us so far).

And the glory of it all, I asked her this weekend of her feet hurt at the end of the day after playing 3 games and she looked at me like I was insane.  Why would I even be asking her such a thing?  I’m like, you know, you had surgery 7 months ago, does your foot ever hurt after playing 3 games in a day (sometimes, they are back to back).  Nope, she replied, they feel good!  All I ever could have hoped for!

So here’s our picture recap of the tournament and of course video of her first fast pitch hit!