I'm So Serious!
You might remember in my post the other day I was talking about how the last game of pool play was a little different for the Lady Lasers Scarlet team. While many would argue (and have) that winning is everything, it is also important to foster a spirit of unity with your team. Many times athletes put so much pressure on themselves and it can be quite detrimental to their mental state and their overall performance.
As the Lasers Scarlet head into some of the last games they will ever play together, the head coach has decided to have a little bit of fun and not take it all so seriously.
Of course, I don't think he would make the same moves in a bracket play game, but in that game I mentioned above, he did some crazy stuff that ended up with some interesting results.
It actually started just over a week ago when one of the young ladies was playing her last games with the team. She has other obligations through the rest of the summer, so she isn't able to finish out the year with the Lasers. As a sort of going away gift, the coach had her pitching one or two innings during pool play. It was quite amusing and as you can imagine, for a young lady who doesn't normally pitch, the results were less than stellar.
The team had a great time though and the praise and encouragement the other player was getting was amazing.
Well, this week the coach did the same thing, but on a much larger scale. Pretty much every inning he had someone different pitching, someone different catching, and all of the field positions turned on their head. While the girls lost the game 12 to 3 against a team they have already played several times this year, it was amazing to watch how much the ladies came together to support their teammates.
In fact, I don't think I have heard them yell and cheer that loud all summer. Even the coaches got in on the action allowing some of the parents to call the pitches and plays at first and third base. In other circumstances they might have been able to squeak out a win despite all the chaos.
My niece used to pitch, but decided several years ago she didn't want to do that anymore and set her focus on playing short stop. She has become an amazing short stop, but for this game they had her pitching again. It took her a bit, but she eased right back into it and was able to get three outs in pretty quick succession and allowed only one run.
Our brother in law texted us at one point that the coaches from the other team were about to blow a gasket because of all the changes and the fact that the team wasn't taking the game very seriously.
Personally, I'm not really fan of the other team, so I think it was pretty funny that they caused as much chaos as possible!
Despite the 12 to 3 loss, it was a really fun game to watch and I hope it created some memories that the ladies will take with them into their university careers.
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