Good game, on to Thursday

First off, here is the link to the map for Marshalltown

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109575020038814676831.000446b23d72439193bfc&source=embed&ll=42.041963,-92.938671&spn=0.032381,0.055189&z=14

I believe it should be the same as last year, for those of you that went there, which is the south of the two push pins on the above link, the one at the golf course. And we will be playing on Field C. It is 1006 S 12th St. Marshalltown Bring along my number 515 290 7500 and call if you have problems.


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And now, on to tonite's game. Well that got a little more exciting that I planned. No quit in the Highland Park outfit.

First off, our pitching. Alex did a very good job for us through 4 innings. He had to come out after 4, because of the 85 pitch, pitch count. So I brought Taylor in. He didn't do too bad, but after throwing 1 pitch for one out, he went long on the next 3 batters. I wanted to save him for Thursday, so I had to pull him at 20. Jason was able to finish off the 5th for us. Then Jason ran into a little trouble in the 6th with a BB, HBP, and a single. I also wanted to save him for tomorrow, so I brought in Mickey.

Mickey did his job. He threw strikes. Unfortunately, they hit them where we weren't. I've never seen so many balls hit on the ground, right up the middle. But then we got the pop up for the first out, Mickey got a strikeout, then the 5-3 put out to end the game.

Scarily, their first 8 batters reached in the 6th, with no outs made by us. BB, HBP, 1b, 1b, 1b, 1b, 1b, HBP, and then F5, K and 5-3. Whew! We coaches talked about pulling Mickey, but I think we just had bad luck. 3 feet in either direction on any of those 5 hits, and we have an easy ground out. So anyway the 10-3 laugher turned into a 10-8 nailbiter. Mickey went to 23 pitches, so he will be ineligible to pitch until next Monday, just like Alex. Taylor and Jason will be taking the hill for us in Marshalltown.

On the defensive side of the ball, we did ok, though we didn't have many opportunities. Of Alex's 12 outs, 10 were strikeouts. Of the last 6 outs, only 1 was a K. Andy had a nice spear of a line shot at first, and Logan made a nice catch in RF to end the 5th inning.

Offensively, I was very happy. I'll give the stars to Andy and Logan. Andy had the over the fence home run, and a triple. Logan went 3-3, and almost jacked one, just hitting the bottom of the fence. I also want to tout good sportsmanship. Maybe the SS, and definitely the 3B for Highland Park gave Andy a 5 as he rounded the bases after his home run. And at least two of their coaches shouted out a congrats as Andy went by. Really nice to see and hear that.

Not everybody got on today, but every spot in the batting order 1-9 got on base tonite. In two other hits of note, Mickey had a very key 2 RBI double for us in the 2nd. And Alex's line shot to 3rd base...It went right in the kids glove, but went right thru the fingers. I was looking at it with their coaches after the hit, and it appears the ball went right thru the glove between the ring and pinkie fingers of the glove. That was a hard hit ball.

I thought the guys were a little tight before the game, and our infield session before the game was kinda ugly. But the team as a whole really came through and got down to business. I really have no complaints about the performance. I could throw out some various nitpicks, but they are mostly physical, and I can live with those. Mentally, we played pretty well, and I didn't see any real bad "dumb" mistakes.

North Story went 2-2 on the night, winning the 12s and 10s, and losing the 9s and 11s. Scores are on the North Story website, and if you hit "Links" you can get to the District 3 website, and there should be some scores there on Thursday.