06/30/06
Filed under:
General
Posted by:
Gavin @ 8:08 am
The time has come. The boys have practiced all they can practice. Now is the time to put their hard work to good use. But first, the jerseys. The boys arrived clad in white undershirts, UnderArmor, Nike Undergear and the like because they hadn’t received their jerseys yet. One by one the players arrived and donned their new navy blue jerseys with white lettering bordered in red stating Deer Valley All Stars on the front and their name and number on back. The boys looked sharp. If nothing else, they’ve got great uniforms. I was able to get a team picture of the boys in uniform. I’ll try to get this posted by Saturday game time.
Warm ups began with the boys playing catch in the outfield. Then, for effect Coach Anthony had Tyler (our boy) start warming up pitching. He threw only about 15 to 20 pitches. The boys from West End were looking at him wide eyed. Then as Tyler finished up and Brian Linhart started to warm up Bart asked about Tyler’s fastball, “What is that? 55? 60? 62?” We answered, “Yea, somewhere in there.” “Damn!” Bart exclaimed shaking his head side to side. We all chuckled at that. I think Tyler intimidated his own teammates.
Game time, 5:30 PM. Game time temperature, 106. A bit humid with the sun still blazing on the field. It was hot. Deer Valley won the coin flip so they take the field sprinting to their positions as a team. They look organized, well prepared and surprisingly relaxed. Brian Linhart takes the mound with Gage Leighty behind the plate. Our Tyler at first, Bart Diehl at second, Austin Mette at third with Tiler Sadowski at short. Ryan Sornsin, Vince Dempsey and Keith Nowak left to right in the outfield. A nice strong defensive alignment to start the game.
That being said, West End came out and promptly scored a run on us. But when it was the good guys turn at the plate we introduced them to the Deer Valley starting lineup. Austin Mette, Bart Diehl, Tiler Sadowski, Tyler Abrego, Gage Leighty, Brian Linhart, Ryan Sornsin, Vince Dempsey and Keith Nowak rounding out the order. Mette and Diehl reached base then Tiler Sadowski crushed a triple to the right field gap scoring 2. Tyler came up next and hit a nice double over short scoring Tiler. Brian Linhart grounded out moving Tyler to third before scoring on a single by Gage Leighty making the score Deer Valley 4, West End 1 after one.
Brian Linhart pitched a great three innings handing the ball over to Tiler Sadowski in the fourth. Tiler struggled a bit on the mound giving up a couple runs in the fourth. His last two innings were scoreless but not easy at all with West End stranding two runners in both innings. The good guys had scored another insurance run back in the fourth making the final Deer Valley 5, West End 3.
One game down and three more to go in pool play. Our next game is tonight at 5:30 against Sidewinder with Tyler slated to pitch this one. Should be a good game. Hopefully the boys will be a little more relaxed out there with a game under their belt and a have little more confidence with the win too. I’ll let you know how it goes. Until next time, stay safe and happy and I’ll be typing at you later.
Leave a Reply