Welcome to my world of fastpitch softball where our world revolves around practices, pitching lessons and tournaments. Unlike baseball tournaments, the softball tournaments start early in the morning and if the team does well can last until way late into the night.
My daughter has been playing softball for about 3 years now and she has been pitching for 2 of those years. We have spent countless hours (and money) on pitching lessons and practice.
We got her on a travel team last Fall. The basis of the team isn't so much games but entering tournaments around the state. We have been fortunate enough that most of our tournaments are 30 minutes to 1 hour away from home.
Her team was entered into a tournament just yesterday. As I said, they start early in the morning. Our first game was at 9am!!
In order to get to the field on time and get warmed up for the game, we have to leave the house by 7:15am. That means we all have to be up by 6:30.
That's just too darn early on a Saturday!!
So, we are up, have the cooler packed, the car loaded and we are on our way.
Lets not forget it's suppose to be 97 degrees today. Good thing we got one of those big 10x10 tents 2 years ago. It has come in so handy on the ball field as well as on the beach.
Victoria got the day started by pitching in the first game. She did a great job and only gave up 1 run.
Every pitcher also has their turn at batting.
After we won that first game, we got a game break then played our second game.
We won the second game, got another game break then came back out for our third game.
We have 2 pitchers on our team so they take turns.
Victoria got to pitch in our 3rd game of the day.
We won that game and got another game break before our 4th game.
Did I mention it was 97 degrees yesterday. This is where the big tent comes in so handy. During the breaks we try to keep the girls in the shade and resting.
We played and won our 4th game which meant we were going to the championship game. YEA!!!
The girls fought so hard to get to this point.
We had another game break before the championship game started.
The championship game finally started around 9:30 pm. By this time we have been on the ballfield since 9am.
12 hours of softball!!!
Here both of our pitchers are warming up before the game.
We lost our first game and since it's a double elimination tournament; we have to play another game. We start the 2nd championship game at 11pm.
By this time our girls were half asleep. Our pitchers were doing fine, but the defense wasn't making any plays. Our bats weren't doing great and so we just weren't able to pull it out.
We ended up coming in 2nd place.
The girls played so well all day we were so proud of them.
We finally left the part at midnight. Why they can't break up these tournaments into 2 days like they do the baseball I'll never know.
Anyone who says softball is a "girlie sport", hasn't ever spent time watching these girls play ALL DAY!
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