by: Mike White
It was the top of the sixth and there we were, roughly around 6:15 PM, down 16-10 to MNWA. It was our last chance to show the NWLA that we weren’t the pushovers that were lucky to have backed into the tournament.
Even though we had won a game against OCWA, we looked horrible again at the plate, against a pitcher we should have scored more than four runs against. We had still yet to show any intelligence or quality hitting at the plate, but a good at-bat here or there. If it wasn't for Joey Dougher and his amazing pitching performance, we would have been looking at 0-5. Instead we were 1-3, looking at a birth in the dreaded loser's tournament, with a 1-4 record.
Again on the mound against us was a pitcher we had no reason to have not dominated. Dougher - who had been lights-out against the great team of OCWA - was struggling this time. MNWA had some really good hits, but with runners on base that shouldn’t have been there. As accurate as Dougher was his last outing, he was as wild this time around. Each time he came off the mound to end an inning, I was there to tell him, “Don't worry we got your back. We will get this for you.” I had no doubt in my mind that if we could put smart at bats together, we could win this game easily. I kept saying to our team, "We should be hanging 30 on this team. We are better than this. There is no way they are fucking better than us!". Still, inning after inning, we were getting runs, but not nearly enough. Then something happened that didn’t happen in regionals or in our previous five tourney games - we remembered how to have quality at-bats.
It took us until the last at-bat of our ninth game to finally use our brains at the plate. If we were going to lose this game, we weren’t going to beat ourselves this time. We had done it too many times. Gone was us swinging at 3-0 pitches. No longer were we chasing balls. We had remembered that the opposing team’s pitcher had to throw us strikes to win. Where we previously were striking out or popping pitches up that we had no reason to be swinging at, we were taking pitches. The base runners were adding up and with patience, so were the runs. When we did get strikes, we made them pay. Down to our last three outs - to gain some respect and down six, we were able to put up eight runs. We did what I told Dougher we would do - we had his back. He was there for us against OCWA when we needed him and, this time, we were there to pick him up when he needed it. It took us to our point of no return to finally have a quality inning of hitting. When Tom Hannon made the final out on a terrific diving catch to complete our comeback, we finally had a game we could look at with pride as a team and say, “This is what we could do.”
It was far from a great game on our part. In fact, it was in my eyes, still a game that doesn’t show what we are truly capable of doing. But for one inning, when we needed to have the best inning we ever have had as a team, we had it. The question, is can we take our momentum and carry it over to tomorrow? Can we play, with the intelligence and skill that we have, for an entire game? We are going to find out tomorrow because as Hannon said as he got off the ground after making the game ending catch, "WE'RE FUCKING PLAYING TOMORROW!!!"
It was the top of the sixth and there we were, roughly around 6:15 PM, down 16-10 to MNWA. It was our last chance to show the NWLA that we weren’t the pushovers that were lucky to have backed into the tournament.
Even though we had won a game against OCWA, we looked horrible again at the plate, against a pitcher we should have scored more than four runs against. We had still yet to show any intelligence or quality hitting at the plate, but a good at-bat here or there. If it wasn't for Joey Dougher and his amazing pitching performance, we would have been looking at 0-5. Instead we were 1-3, looking at a birth in the dreaded loser's tournament, with a 1-4 record.
Again on the mound against us was a pitcher we had no reason to have not dominated. Dougher - who had been lights-out against the great team of OCWA - was struggling this time. MNWA had some really good hits, but with runners on base that shouldn’t have been there. As accurate as Dougher was his last outing, he was as wild this time around. Each time he came off the mound to end an inning, I was there to tell him, “Don't worry we got your back. We will get this for you.” I had no doubt in my mind that if we could put smart at bats together, we could win this game easily. I kept saying to our team, "We should be hanging 30 on this team. We are better than this. There is no way they are fucking better than us!". Still, inning after inning, we were getting runs, but not nearly enough. Then something happened that didn’t happen in regionals or in our previous five tourney games - we remembered how to have quality at-bats.
It took us until the last at-bat of our ninth game to finally use our brains at the plate. If we were going to lose this game, we weren’t going to beat ourselves this time. We had done it too many times. Gone was us swinging at 3-0 pitches. No longer were we chasing balls. We had remembered that the opposing team’s pitcher had to throw us strikes to win. Where we previously were striking out or popping pitches up that we had no reason to be swinging at, we were taking pitches. The base runners were adding up and with patience, so were the runs. When we did get strikes, we made them pay. Down to our last three outs - to gain some respect and down six, we were able to put up eight runs. We did what I told Dougher we would do - we had his back. He was there for us against OCWA when we needed him and, this time, we were there to pick him up when he needed it. It took us to our point of no return to finally have a quality inning of hitting. When Tom Hannon made the final out on a terrific diving catch to complete our comeback, we finally had a game we could look at with pride as a team and say, “This is what we could do.”
It was far from a great game on our part. In fact, it was in my eyes, still a game that doesn’t show what we are truly capable of doing. But for one inning, when we needed to have the best inning we ever have had as a team, we had it. The question, is can we take our momentum and carry it over to tomorrow? Can we play, with the intelligence and skill that we have, for an entire game? We are going to find out tomorrow because as Hannon said as he got off the ground after making the game ending catch, "WE'RE FUCKING PLAYING TOMORROW!!!"