Pirates Roast Dragons  and Sneak by the Spartans.....or did I get that backwards?

I'm back...It was a long winter.  Often I would write letters to myself and then burn them. I would disappear into my parallel universe and visit with people.   I would get out old softball pictures and see if I could remember who they were.  But now Spring as arrived and so has Fastpitch Season.  We have a new crop of 22 players and they are all eager to get going.  This year we have 11 frosh out for the sport.  I guess it must just be too much fun to resist.  We also have six sophomores and four juniors.  NEVER let anyone say that we are young.  They are all high school age.  We have new uniforms this year and today we found out that they work...otherwise we would have dumped them. By the way...there is only one newsletter today..so even if you hit both games, you end up here. And...for the state basketball team that couldn't beat Somerset or Pine City...We got revenge on both today.  By the way..for the little movies that I included...with a modem they take a couple of minutes to load... At School  or with DSL they are almost instant..

We had to tell Katie the choices on a coin.

Today's first game was against a very solid Pine City team.  They have good pitching and played almost flawless in the field.  Check out our starters.  With both teams making some critical errors we were fortunate to come home with a 4-3 victory.  Mollie started the game with three strikeouts and the sky seemed blue.  Even though Whit walked in the first, the Pirates were unable to score.  In Grantsburg's second Lindsey started the inning with a solid single to right center.  Shelby walked and Sarah picked up the first RBI of the season as she put the ball in play allowing Lindsey to score.  Pine City picked up a single run in the third taking full advantage of four Grantsburg errors.... In our half of the third, Mollie placed a bunt single perfectly down the third base line...  The ball actually hit her on the hand, but the ump didn't see it until later or it would have been called a deadball.  The finger would get quite sore before the day was done.  Whit walked and Mollie took third on a beautiful delayed steal.  Mollie scored soon and so did Whitney on a passed ball.  Grantsburg took the lead at 3-1.  Pine City battled back.  Their number 5 hitter launched one over Katie's head in center for a double and eventually scored cutting the lead to one.  In the Pine City half of the 5th they picked up another run on one hit, one walk and passed ball on a third strike.  As the time limit of the game was reaching the 90 minute mark, Grantsburg had one more chance.  Alyssa Ryan came to the plate and worked the pitcher for a walk.  Katie was then beaned.  After Whitney took one off the side of the head, the bases were loaded with one out.  Pine City executed the play on a passed ball as Alyssa tried to score but they got her.....So with two outs and the bases loaded Miranda came to the plate... As luck would have it, the catcher missed the third strike... Miranda scampered to first and Katie scampered home... We had escaped with a victory...4-3

No big deal...Off to Culvers....

Game 2 was with Somerset.  Grantsburg's first six batters would all score as the game soon became a blow out.  After three innings the score stood at 17-0...  The coaches agreed to end the game and play a JV scrimmage.  For the game, Katie scored three times and so did Mollie.  Whitney, Miranda and Shelby each scored twice.  Miranda picked up 3 hits and 5 RBI's while Mollie picked up 4 RBI's. Lindsey also had 2 hits.  Somerset's first batter singled to start the game but they were unable to score in the shortened game.  In the JV part, Ashley got a hit and walked. Allison picked up a single.  Sasha got a hit and Melissa crushed one to the wall.  I have no idea what the score was.

TWIS:  For all of you new readers  TWIS stands for This Week in Softball. Lindsey has lots of toes.   There was no snow this year.  Our foreign exchange student exchanged her clock on the wrong night and was a No show.  Where did Michelle get the white shirt?  The Stillwater shortcut at 11 stop signs. We have been coming to the dome for a lonnnng time.Ashley hurt her wrist in practice.  Michelle got clobbered.  Michelle's mom got knocked over in the door.  Bart pitches twice a week... Give that guy a wig and a skirt and he could start.  Monday night is little Pirate night.  Good to see Elise and Callie show up.  Emily's head spun all the way around.  The Tatoo machine got another workout.  Did you find the Ad for dirt on the first page??  Hello to Buddy and Sena... We almost didn't start without you.  The game was on the radio.  Have you ever been to Faribault?  Not too creative, yet.  The eagles are back... TACB.  To be really creative I need the pontoon and time.......  Miranda took one off the wrist. Do you remember when the school colors used to be purple and white?  Maddie used all the tape and turned into a mummy.  Amanda has more arms and legs than Shelby.  Somerset should spend less time practicing cheers and more time playing catch.  Nice to see Mandy Bjerke playing for Pine City....Bart has only hit two so far.  Macy is our bat girl and uses the cell phone....to call her boy friends.  I would tell you all three stories but you wouldn't remember them.  During this week, some girls did softball 8 times...WOW....  Thanks for the treats between games...Your kids will start for sure.  Thanks WCMP for putting the game on the air.  Thanks Mike Amundson for setting up the games.  On the bus ride home there was only about 5 players... Congratulations to the boy's basketball team... Their skill and their sportsmanship made us all proud... I will never yell at another umpire...until Tuesday.  For you parents....if you see your kid in a picture below. right click the picture with your mouse and save it to a disk... Drive to WalMart and print it out..Place it on your fridge.  It will remind you to send snacks.gg  And don't forget about the most important outfit for softball.!  Now Listen...softball players... How will you improve after this outing...What went on that you didn't understand?  ASK.... What did you do well?  Where do you need to improve?  Baserunning is a weakness for us... We MUST try and fix that.  What else confused you?

Welcome Home!!!