62-3-3

As best I can figure by going back to all the tournaments Kenzie has played in, that's the regular season record of the Lake Shore Lightning.

The softball season culminated in a fantastic battle of the titans when LSL met their arch-rivals, the Phiadelphia Spirit. After beating the Spirit 6-0 in a preliminary game on Saturday, the final showdown came in the championship game on Sunday afternoon. Everyone contributed to get us to this point but since this is my little piece of the Internet, I have to take a moment to extol the performance of my little #4. After a couple of scoreless innings, where both teams had runners in scoring position, but failed to cross the plate, Kenzie sent a one-out line drive into center field, earning her a single. Coach Terry gave her the "half-way" sign, meaning she should take a good lead, and she had permission to steal if the opportunity presented itself. To Kenzie, this meant she was going to attempt yet another delayed steal. I lost count of how many of those she's made this year. Anyway, after the next pitch, Kenzie took her lead, and following a lazy throw back to the pitcher, she took off. I thought she was a goner because her lead was very short, but the pitcher paid absolutely no attention to Kenzie. By the time the pitcher realized Kenzie was stealing, she had to make a hurried throw to second base that wound up in center field. This prompted Kenzie to take third, leading to another errant throw that hit the fence. And yes, Kenzie came home to score the first run of the game. All on a delayed steal. Very cool. The Spirit proceeded to get two runs to take the lead and a few innings later, we were starting to bite our fingernails. In the bottom of the sixth, our girls managed to scrape out two more runs. I am ashamed to say I don't remember who scored those runs, but I did have a ball fly at my chair at one point, knocking my drink off my little table and I know that's when the third run crossed the plate. I was in the process of getting out of the way of the stray ball and failed to see who was running the bases. After Ali shut down the Spirit in the top of the seventh, the Lightning emerged as champions once again. This kind of thing makes up for spending two nights a week at softball practice, spending 14 of the last 15 weekends in different towns and parks, spending lots and lots of money on softball stuff, etc.













Well, another thing that makes it worth it is the camaraderie that develops between the girls. There is a mutual respect that grows into friendship off the field. Between games the girls from both teams get along like they've been friends forever, even though they live in two different cities in two different states. Even after the heated battle of that final game, here's how they ended up, awaiting the trophy ceremony. The Spirit player, the coach's daughter, sitting next to Kenzie in this picture actually made someone else move over so she and Kenzie could sit together.

In two weeks, we head to Ohio for the NSA Eastern World Series. The Spirit will be there, too.

Oh, and just a note about the 62-3-3 record. All three losses and one tie were to the Spirit, one tie was with the Mystics, and the other with the DE Magic. So, the only team to ever beat us was the Spirit, with whom we share identical records, 3-3-1. I don't think two top teams could be much more evenly matched, although the Spirit did lose to teams other than us.