Kadena Klassic
The first two days of this tournament were to find seedings for the double elimination portion of the weekend. There were 5 teams in each pool and the worst team in each pool would not be invited to the bracket.
Day 1
The team was eager and excited to get going after we had to wait all day to allow for the rest of the teams to get off of work. As we started out we were a little jittery and you could tell a little nervous as most of our team has never played in such a massive tournament. It showed through a couple of unforced errors in the first inning allowing the team from the local Navy base to score six runs. However, the nervous energy turned good for us at the plate as we tied it right back up with a few homeruns over the larger fence. The second inning brought a couple more runs and then we went to take the lead with a nine run tear that put us up for good. The final score was 22-12.
Annihilation is not a term I use often and when I do it is usually describing our victories, not our defeats. However, our second game we were annihilated. American Legion won the tournament last year and competes heavily in international tournaments all over the Pacific. So to say the least they are a pretty decent team. They're first 5 hitters looked like they could start for a college basketball team as they towered over our tallest player. They came out swinging, and swinging hard. We have never had 22 runs put up against us in a single inning and I think we were in a little shock when it happened. Honestly I didn't think we were going to get the three outs needed to end the bleeding that the first inning brought about. Thankfully every innning wasn't that bad and they only scored 11 runs the rest of the game. Maybe they let up or not, I dunno. We did manage to score 13 runs ourself which was the third most runs allowed against them in the 10 games they played. Seeing this team play gave me a good perspective of how real softball is played...Final score 33-13.
(As expected these guys went on to win the tournament. The final game's score was 40-14)
Day 2
Knowing we had already played the best team in the tournament, we knew we had a chance against the next two teams. We got the cahnce to watch them the night before and knew their defense was suspect. Our first game of the night was against Camp Schwab (Schaub, Schwaub, I dunno how they spelled it). We battled back and forth similar to the night prior and found our stroke in the third inning and took the lead for good. Final score 22-12.
Our last pool game was against an 0-3 marine team. They had good hitting the whole game but couldn't score the runs and their defense wasn't very good. Our bats showed signs of struggle as we were only ahead by one run after 5 innings. Thankfully we got our one inning of solid strokes in and went on a rampage the last inning getting our 20+ score that we were looing for. Final score 21-8.
Day 3
The double elimination team started off early against the local Shoguns. They were an older team that seemed to be pretty rusty at the plate so early in the morning. Unfortunately for us, so were we. Our demise came with a couple of costly errors giving them a two run lead as we entered the bottom of the last inning. Like the slumps we were in earlier in the year we couldn't get a hit to save our lives as we dropped the first game 10-8.
(The worst part of this game was that we could of beat these guys had we hit they way we did the nights before, but they got the better of us and went on to take third place)
The next game turned out to be our last. The team that we played was staying in the same hotel as us so we had been watching them all weekend. Unfortunately they would leave with the upper hand. Our errors and cold bats continued and frustration elevated as we couldn't get much offense going. It seemed like every time we would get a run they would get 2 more and stayed just that much ahead of us the whole game. It was a bummer to see the last out but hopefully everyone learned from it. Next year we will be back and ready to play the whole weekend......
Day 1
The team was eager and excited to get going after we had to wait all day to allow for the rest of the teams to get off of work. As we started out we were a little jittery and you could tell a little nervous as most of our team has never played in such a massive tournament. It showed through a couple of unforced errors in the first inning allowing the team from the local Navy base to score six runs. However, the nervous energy turned good for us at the plate as we tied it right back up with a few homeruns over the larger fence. The second inning brought a couple more runs and then we went to take the lead with a nine run tear that put us up for good. The final score was 22-12.
Annihilation is not a term I use often and when I do it is usually describing our victories, not our defeats. However, our second game we were annihilated. American Legion won the tournament last year and competes heavily in international tournaments all over the Pacific. So to say the least they are a pretty decent team. They're first 5 hitters looked like they could start for a college basketball team as they towered over our tallest player. They came out swinging, and swinging hard. We have never had 22 runs put up against us in a single inning and I think we were in a little shock when it happened. Honestly I didn't think we were going to get the three outs needed to end the bleeding that the first inning brought about. Thankfully every innning wasn't that bad and they only scored 11 runs the rest of the game. Maybe they let up or not, I dunno. We did manage to score 13 runs ourself which was the third most runs allowed against them in the 10 games they played. Seeing this team play gave me a good perspective of how real softball is played...Final score 33-13.
(As expected these guys went on to win the tournament. The final game's score was 40-14)
Day 2
Knowing we had already played the best team in the tournament, we knew we had a chance against the next two teams. We got the cahnce to watch them the night before and knew their defense was suspect. Our first game of the night was against Camp Schwab (Schaub, Schwaub, I dunno how they spelled it). We battled back and forth similar to the night prior and found our stroke in the third inning and took the lead for good. Final score 22-12.
Our last pool game was against an 0-3 marine team. They had good hitting the whole game but couldn't score the runs and their defense wasn't very good. Our bats showed signs of struggle as we were only ahead by one run after 5 innings. Thankfully we got our one inning of solid strokes in and went on a rampage the last inning getting our 20+ score that we were looing for. Final score 21-8.
Day 3
The double elimination team started off early against the local Shoguns. They were an older team that seemed to be pretty rusty at the plate so early in the morning. Unfortunately for us, so were we. Our demise came with a couple of costly errors giving them a two run lead as we entered the bottom of the last inning. Like the slumps we were in earlier in the year we couldn't get a hit to save our lives as we dropped the first game 10-8.
(The worst part of this game was that we could of beat these guys had we hit they way we did the nights before, but they got the better of us and went on to take third place)
The next game turned out to be our last. The team that we played was staying in the same hotel as us so we had been watching them all weekend. Unfortunately they would leave with the upper hand. Our errors and cold bats continued and frustration elevated as we couldn't get much offense going. It seemed like every time we would get a run they would get 2 more and stayed just that much ahead of us the whole game. It was a bummer to see the last out but hopefully everyone learned from it. Next year we will be back and ready to play the whole weekend......
posted by Nickolaus Kersting at 11:59 AM
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