Game 9 - Tue 4.29 - L

What can I say? We were stung by the Stingers last night in what was possibly our most frustrating loss of the season. Playing with a deficit of 3 girls, the Whos played with the minimum number of girls for the first time in the season. Although the Who girls seemed excited to play, the enthusiasm wasn’t enough to overcome our player deficit.

FINAL SCORE
Whos: 5
Stingers: 9

On the bright side, the Stingers are probably the most skilled team in our division and judging by our improved score from the last time we played them (last game was Stingers: 17 – Whos: 8), we’ve shown a lot of improvement skill and play-wise. We’re still in there Whos. Every game has been competitive. We’re just missing that little X-factor or that little bit of extra effort that will start putting us over in the win column. We still have the 2nd half to see if we can improve our current record, which stands at 2 wins and 7 losses.

RECAP
As visitors, the Whos took their at bats. Shelbey got on base on a walk, but, while she was stealing her way to 3rd to put herself into scoring position, the Stinger pitcher came on with the heat and struck out our next 3 batters giving us nothing in our half of the opening frame.

Shelbey, started off strong at the rubber with an initial strike out, but the Stingers’ aggressive play and a couple of hits put them into scoring position. Shelbey getting anxious managed to strike out a second batter, but struggled to close out the inning and the Stingers were able to put up 4 runs.

In the second, Destinee got on base on a walk. After a couple of steals, Gaby hit the sacrifice ball to the Stinger 2nd base player who threw her out at 1, but not before Destinee was able to cross the plate for our first score of the night. The Whos looked to be coming back here as they loaded the bases, but the Stingers were able to shut us down to retire the side.

Stingers at bat in the second. This was almost a carbon copy of the 1st inning. Shelbey was able to put together 2 strike outs, but the elusive 3rd out didn’t seem to want to come out and play for the Whos and the Stingers notched another 4.

Top of the 3rd saw Jade get a hit for a very tempting double, but heads up play by the Stinger defense held Jade on 1. As the Whos started to load the bases, the Stinger pitcher began to struggle and walked 2. The pitcher was replaced, but didn’t fare much better as she let 2 walks in herself.

Taking over at the bottom of the 3rd, Jade put in another solid performance as pitcher. She let one run in on a walk, but that was all for the inning as she finally found where that 3rd strike was hiding.

Top of the 4th, the Whos, behind by 4, needed to wake up their offense to close the distance, but the Stinger pitcher, once again, proved to be too much for our girls and was able to string together enough strikes to keep us scoreless and win the game for the Stingers.

Although it was a disappointing loss, we proved that we can hang in there. And with some hard work on pitching, improving our team work, and staying in the pocket to take some swings, we should be able to improve our position in the 2nd half of the ’08 season.

GAME BALL
The game ball for this game went to Cambria for the simple fact that her attitude is always stellar on the field. She comes to play all the time. She always has a big smile on her face while practicing or playing – except, of course, when she took that ball to the lip during practice. And she’s always aware of where the plays are at regardless of what position she’s playing. This kind of attitude and game (and general) awareness sets an example for what we want on our team (and our league) from every girl out there. Keep it up Cambria. Good job!