PLAY BALL!

Softball is consuming our lives now (except when UNO the dog is playing that role). The girls are on two different teams and usually that's OK - Kali's team travels for tournaments and plays weekends. Melia's team plays a couple of week nights each week. Some weeks we have practice or games every day of the week because on Thursday nights Duane plays on a men's team too!

Kali's team has been playing in tournaments since March 1st. Three so far this season and they won the last tourney in Sacramento. And because the team had lost a player, Melia suited up and was an emergency back up. She did play a couple of innings in right field when the primary catcher was injured on a play at the plate and had to sit out on defense on day one. And on day two she was included in the batting order during the first game and was walked a couple of times and scored some runs. Her contributions earned her a championship medal along with the rest of the players.

Melia is playing regularaly on the Bratz with Batz rec ball team. She's our 'ace' pitcher and has been taking pitching lessons for a couple of months now. She's got a great fastball, a change up, a curve that is coming along and has recently started learning the drop ball. Compared to last summer when she just started to earnestly practice pitching and took a handful of lessons, she's really come a long way. In fact, she threw hard enough in her last game to knock a former teammate out of the game with a pitch that hit the girl in the knee cap. That experience threw Melia for quite a loop - she didn't know quite how to react to it - she felt really bad about hitting her friend. But she's recovered (and we hope that Bailey has too!). So far the team is 3-0, plus one game unfinished and Melia has more than 10 strikeouts.

Check back for updates on the season in a few weeks! We'll be playing through May with Melia's team and through 4th of July weekend with Kali's traveling team.