https://www.facebook.com/MidwestSportsProductions/videos/191881291712966/
Spoiler alert, the boys won the tournament. For the Championship Game there was a Midwest Sports Production reporter that filmed it and afterwards interviewed Matthew, Derrick and his coach. They just posted the final article/video to their Facebook page today. Matthew is in it quite a bit.
It was their first wooden bat tournament. They played a game earlier in the week and used wood bats to get used to it and it was not pretty. One strike out after another. Matthew was pretty frustrated and was not looking forward to the tournament. He put in some extra batting time and Ryan got him his own wood bat that was the right weight and he was feeling much better about it. They played 5 games, won them all and only allowed 7 runs total in all 5 of those games.
The games were all good games against good teams, and our boys played well. Everyone was on top of their game. They hit well, fielded well. It was really fun to watch. A friend of Matthew’s that is on his football team played with us because we needed an extra player, his name is Xander. We are actually trying to get him to join our team so it was kind of a try out for everyone. He is a naturally athletic kid and is a great baseball player too. He played catcher a lot of the time or second and I think he and Matthew really boosted each others playing. He had some amazing throws and stops and he kept the energy up for the team.
The team as a whole was playing great but Matthew had the best weekend of baseball he has ever had. I am going to do some mom bragging for a while so get comfortable. It is so fun to watch him play, he loves it, he gets it, you can see him watching and thinking and he is good at it. He doesn’t have to wait to be told what to do by the coaches he is already doing it when they call it out. His batting average usually bounces around 400-500. It was 778 for this tournament! He was CRUSHING it! He got several doubles, and a triple. He thinks he might have gotten his first home run if he was using his regular metal bat. He and Xander scored all 5 runs for one of our games. He is our fastest runner. He loves his nickname- Cheetah (or if Allison is around she cheers for Cheeto to tease him). We missed one game because we were at church. We arrived for the last half of the second overtime inning. As soon as Matthew got there his coach put him in as a pinch runner and he scored the tying run and then the person behind him scored the winning run.
He couldn’t miss all weekend it was awesome. Pop flies, grounders, line drives, anything that came near him he got it and gunned it to whatever base to get the out. Nothing got by him. They got a couple double plays too. There were a couple runners that thought they could steal a base than ended up in a pickle. Watching him chase someone down in a pickle is awesome. You can just see him turn the speed up a notch. It is nail biting to watch but it is great how they all know their parts and execute the play and back each other up.
This video is less than 10 seconds long (Xander’s mom took it and shared it with me) but it captures one of their plays and how awesome they were working together. I am not a sports announcer as you will soon find out but I am going to explain this video anyways. Then Matthew will have proof that I knew what was going on and wasn’t just sitting there eating my peanuts. (Love you Matthew 😉)
https://www.facebook.com/jessica.meinig/videos/10155600367720957/?t=2
There was a runner on first and they new he would probably try and steal second on the next pitch so the coach signaled Xander (catcher) to catch him stealing. So Xander calls a high pitch from Frankie (pitcher) so he can start to stand up to catch it. Matthew (short stop) also gets the signal. Frankie pitches a perfect pitch straight across the plate but just above the batters head so he won’t swing. As soon as he releases the ball he steps to the side so Xander has a straight shot to Matthew. The runner on first takes of to steal second but Xander has already jumped up to his strongest throwing position when he catches the ball so he is ready to throw it immediately to Matthew who has cut across to the other side of second base and has his glove out in the path of the runner to catch Xander’s throw that hits his glove with a nice pop right before the runner slides directly into it and is called out. Bam! In 7 seconds you have a perfectly executed defensive play by some cute, talented, fun, baseball loving 12 year olds. Not to mention what all the other boys did- center and second backed up Matthew, first was ready in case he tried to come back, right backed him up etc. It is so fun to see all of them getting better, trusting, supporting, learning, and growing as a team.
