Smoke Tourney

Claire is on a different travel softball team for the fall. It still has the name of Smoke, but the coach and players are new. Two weekend ago was their first tournament playing together.

It was a pretty hot weekend. Our house was at over 100, but the tournament was in Fremont where the temp was only about 95. The girls played their hearts out. On Saturday they lost all 3 games. Claire struggled a bit that day with her batting. Her defense was great though.

On Sunday it was double elimination. Our first game was at 8am. Pretty tough to get the family up and ready and to the field by 7am. The only positive was that we beat the heat at that time. That was a tough game and we lost. Our next game was at 11. It was already heating up pretty good by then. It was looking like we'd lose again and get to go home. Our team was down 9-2 going into the 4th inning. Time was almost out so we knew it would be the last inning. Claire was up to bat first. She hit the ball and was thrown out at first. 1 out. All of a sudden the other girls on her team starting hitting the ball as well. Claire was asked to come in and run for a teammate that got a nice hit. She is a great base runner and was able to steal bases and score. The team was catching up fast. It was really exciting to watch. Another teammate grounded out. 2 outs. Now Claire gets another chance at bat with 2 outs. The pressure was high. I think the score was 8-9 at this point. She hit a solid single to right field! It was incredible! She allowed the tying run to score. When the next batter came up she was able to steal 2nd base. Then the batter also hit a great single and Claire was able to run all the way home to score and win the game! It was pandemonium. We were all on our feet cheering as loud as possible. It was an amazing come back win! We were so happy for Claire to enjoy her victory. She puts in so much effort.

Claire just scored the game winning run!

This is a SUPER happy Claire!

Because we won the game, we now had to play another game at 6pm. Several people from the team all went to a mexican restaurant for lunch and some AC. We had a leisurely lunch and relaxed for the afternoon before returning to the field. That next game was almost just as intense. Claire did amazing again. The team was in the middle of another great comeback when things just didn't go our way and we ended up losing. It was really close. We were so close to winning that game. Oh well. It was a lot of fun to watch the girls. Glad Claire is still enjoying it.