Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Laguna 10U versus Elk Grove 10U


With the Norcal Cal Ripken 10U tournament scheduled for this coming weekend, the coaches of Jack's all star team have been trying to arrange a number of games against other teams. We went to Woodland last Friday night to play, but the other team did not show up. We were supposed to play a north valley team on Saturday, but they canceled and the team had a regular practice instead. We finally got a chance to play tonight against the Elk Grove North U10 team at Morse. There are three kids on the Elk Grove North team that played with the Gunners at Cooperstown: Austin, Dillon and Keaton.

The game was a little like two prize fighters dancing around each other. There is a chance that we could play again in the tournament next week. As a result, neither team was showcasing its best pitching or fielding its strongest defense. Jack's team, the Outlaws, used all thirteen players equally in the field and at bat over the course of the eight inning game.

At the bat, Jack was 1 for 2 with a walk and a run scored. With Josh on second, Jack hit a pitch hard to the left of the shortstop in his first at-bat. Taking his eye off the ball to look at Josh, the shortstop bobbled the ball, tried to make the throw to first anyway and Jack was easily safe on the error with Josh advancing to third. Jack eventually came around to score. Leading off the fifth inning with his second plate appearance, Jack hit one hard up the middle. The shortstop knocked the ball down, but did not attempt a throw. Jack was forced out at second on a fielder choice by Trevor. In his last at-bat with one out and runners on first and second in the bottom of the eighth, Jack walked to load the bases. The next batter, Breyton, drove in the winning run when he was hit by a pitch.

In field, Jack played four innings at third base, one inning in left field and pitched one inning. Although a little wild, he pitched pretty well: striking out one batter and getting two batters to ground out back to him. They gave up two unearned runs in the inning he pitched on a couple of errors and a couple of passed balls. At third, he had only one opportunity. Jack fielded a grounder and flipped it to Cooper covering third trying to get Austin.

The Laguna 10U all stars scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth to beat the Elk Grove North 10U team by a score of 6 to 5.

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