Practice Schmactice...

My dad modified the well known cliche, saying, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you win!"

And I created a corollary, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's just a hell of a lot more fun to win!"

And so, Team Green put a win in our pocket for this practice season today, 17-13 over Royal.

We did it some very significant individual and team contributions in ways that really count.

Great defense:

• In the first, Angie started a SS to Phil at Rover to LT at first, who scooped a low throw. The top of the Royal lineup is excellent, and this play set the tone for the game.
• In the second, David made a great running catch in LF. Angie stabbed a one hop hot shot in the 5-6 hole and snapped a perfect throw to first. And to finish the trifecta in the inning, Mike grabbed a grounder on the third base line before it could go foul and heffe corralled his low throw.
• In the fourth, with the potential fifth run on third, Darren caught the second out and threw a perfect one hopper to LT at home to nail the runner. By the way, I have never seen a Creaker who plays the left sun fields at Heather Farm better than Darren. 
• David made another nice catch running in playing right field later in the game.
• Matt had a stellar game at 2B, he made a number of plays including a hot shot to his abdomen in the last inning that he turned into an out.

And as I think will become the norm this season, excellent pitching by Mark and Chris, which is part of great defense. Royal's top of the order got four in the ninth, but before that we held a potent lineup to nine runs in eight innings.

Phil was the hitting star with two triples in his three ABs.

Two significant notes on the offense. The ability to "add on" is extremely important in softball with the high scoring games we see. When Royal scored seven runs in the fourth and fifth innings, we responded with four in each of the fourth, fifth and sixth. That gave us a dominating 14-7 lead, and we cruised onward.

Second was that the fifth inning rally came with two outs and no one on. Mike had opened with a single and then LT sent a laser shot to right center that the fielder caught after a bobble. Mike went for second and was nailed out. But then, Paul, Mark, Greg, Tony, Chris and David put together consecutive two out singles to plate four runs. That's huge.

Four times we strung together four, five, or six straight hits to generate run scoring rallies. That's huge.

Phil had the two triples, Darren had a perfect 4-4 day, and LT, Greg and Phil led the way with three RBIs each. Everyone had at least one hit.

It's how you win!