The Dock
Persona Non Grata
oh yeah. It was 9-1-2 to start with walk-off smacked by 9-hole hitter. serious stones up and down the order as daylight dwindled & the air got thinner with the temperature sinking.Big comeback! Those type of wins can spark a young team!
this team is probably in far better position to be sincerely competitive through a 16-game league schedule than the squads of the last two seasons were. I still think there’s distance between the anticipated <top 3> of the league and this club (which, whatever; the last two District Champs from the Cardinal didn’t even win the league… i’m just saying) but at least this year they can finally get back to the blueprint that (every game) gives them the best chance possible to win. They really weren’t able to get that ideal plan to materialize IMO these last two years (not from a lack of trying, and its no one’s fault) and that was starting to bear out in some of the really brutal losses they took in league play.
The biggest thing with this freshman class that will go the longest way this year and next year isn’t talent (they’re good players with talent, but they aren’t in that category of legendary FC ninth graders who took the league by storm their first year. And that’s OK. No one’s asking or expecting them to be! It doesn’t define who you are as a player and contributor to the team cause.) but instead the sum total of their attitude, work ethic and versatility as a unit. They aren’t patches; they’re answers. Having them really broadens the opportunity to win, opening more things up and it also resolves the glaring depth issue the last two rosters had.
Good win, because it lifts the spirits. A 6-1 loss would’ve still been a leaps and bounds improvement. Winning like that, though, lifts the sails for a team that is on shutdown these next four days. I’m sure next week will bring games where it takes a while to kick it back into gear, but at least these kids now know it’s possible and what it looks like.