Sunday afternoon, the ORCC All-Star softball game was held at the VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe. Team 2 was made up of players from the OU branches (Chillicothe, Lancaster, and Zanesville) and team 1 was made up of players from OSU-Newark, Miami University-Middletown, and UC-Clermont. Erin got to play in the game and played well. She entered the game batting in the top of the 3rd(4th?) inning and doubled in the first two (tying) runs for the OU team, but got stranded at 3rd base. She then played the rest of the game in right field where she ended up making 2 plays. The first one was chasing a ball that got by the first baseman and skidded on the artificial turf off the wall and back toward the corner. She picked it up and threw to third to hold the runner. The other play was a fly ball after the other team had retaken the lead, where she didn’t get a good break and made it look like she was going to miss it, but she did catch the ball to end the inning and kept the lead from getting any larger. In her final at-bat, Erin was called out on a pitch that was about at her ankles. Sigh… Team 1 beat team 2 by a score of 4-3. Still, the girls had fun.
Category: softball
Congrats, OU-L Softball team
Even though they were missing a few players due to illness and other previous family commitments, the #2 seeded OU-L Cougars came to play on Saturday in their matchup with UC-Clermont. With the grey skies and the threat of rain hanging over them, they played a tough team from southwest Ohio. UC-Clermont took a 1-0 lead in the 3rd inning. In the 5th inning, Steph and Erin started off the inning reaching on bunt singles, then were sacrificed over to 2nd and 3rd before being stranded. By the way, Erin hustled on that (remember I said bunt) single despite the ankle, but told me later that they ankle was killing her the rest of the game (she started and played all 9 innings in right field, going 1-for-3 at the plate). UC-Clermont stretched their lead to 2-0 before OU-L came back to tie it at 2 in the bottom of the 6th on back-to-back hits by Courtney and Christine and Christine’s aggressive base running. The game ended up going into extra innings with neither team really threatening in the 8th. In the bottom of the 9th, Heather led off with a double that nearly left the park in left center and the next batter, Liz, ended it with a home run to left to give the Cougars a 4-2 win and the ORCC Conference Tournament Championship (in addition to being regular season co-champs with Newark) when Newark failed to show up and forfeited the rematch.
Erin’s Softball Season, so far
With rain outs (not entirely unexpected in March/April), the season is starting slowly, but with the potential to pick up in a hurry. Out of the first 4 series, only 1 could be played and the OU-L 2008 team performed well enough. Their second opportunity took place on a day that I already felt a little guilty about because we (Sherry and I) had ticket to see the Reds at Great American BallPark. Okay, so they weren’t great seats, but they were okay and we paid less than $40 for the 2 of us. So, although (as I said) I already felt a little guilty at blowing off Erin’s softball games, I didn’t let it become debilitating. Late in the game in Cincinnati I get a call from Erin who is at one of the Miami University branches (Hamilton or Middletown, it clearly doesn’t matter too me much). It turns out without us parents there, she became reacquainted with her batting stroke including a double off the wall (that she swears should have been a home run). Late in the second game, Erin was coming around to score and what happened next is lost in mists of pain and pain relievers. As close as I can tell, Erin reached the plate (scored!), then possibly slid across the plate or digs in the soft earth at the end, resulting in Erin’s ankle attempting to move in ways that are completely in opposition to the laws of nature. In other words, she tore something. Several days of trying to get members of the medical profession to speak English has resulted in the doctor stating he believes something is torn, but that it can’t be made any better in the near term by surgery or whatever and that no more significant damage is likely, so she’d like to soldier on through the games against OU-Chillicothe on Sat (3 May), and Southern State on Sun (4 May), leading up to the actual ORCC tournaments (which the doctors have already verbally agreed to). It turns out, these OU-L Cougars may have a legit shot at the Conference Championship after splitting a double header today with OSU-Newark. The score was 4-3 on tie breakers in the first game (OU-L win) and 7-6 in the second (OSU-N won). The teams look to be well matched so whatever edge one team can get (like a powerhitting left-handed catcher getting back in the lineup) could be all the difference. She is moving more and more daily with relatively little discomfort (there will be some discomfort for a while, but she’ll deal with that after the season). We shall wait and see.