Middle School Softball Tournament

With both Nick and Matt now playing middle school intramural softball, we decided to go down to Taichung for the annual softball tournament held by Morrison Christian Academy ("MCA") in Taichung. Matthew played for Team One of three TAS sixth grade boys' teams while Nick played for Team Two of the eighth grade boys. The boys had to get up at 5am this morning to catch the team bus down to Taichung while Felicia and I drove down, leaving our apartment at 7:30am. A surprise for us was to find out that the boys will be playing at different facilities this year as MCA is undergoing renovations and two of its fields were not available. Matthew played at a facility near the Taichung Ching-tien-gang Airport while Nick played at the MCA campus. There is a distance of around 13km between the two facilities.

As Matthew's first game was scheduled at 10am, we went to his field first. After watching for a couple of innings, we left for Nick's field. Unfortunately, with the Saturday morning traffic, it took us 45 minute to get to MCA. Upon arriving at Nick's field, we realized that we forgot to give Matt money for lunch. So, after spending about 10 minutes at MCA (without seeing any actions from Nick as his team has just completed its first game) we rushed back to Matt's field again.

At the end of a long day, I was fortunate to catch Nick's first win of his intramural softball career and a great win it was. The game was tied after six innings with Nick driving in the tying run during the top of the sixth. Both sides were held scoreless in the first extra inning and the referees decided to use the "Olympic baseball extra inning rules" which allows the offensive team to put a runner on second at the start of the extra inning. The TAS team put together a string of hits (including one by Nick) and scored a total of six runs during the top of the 8th. The team was able to hold Bethany to just one run in the bottom half, with a couple of comical pop fly catches -- both were bobbled and caught with the second one ending with the game ending double-play -- getting the runner at first after the catch. It was a hard fought game with lots of good hits and defensive plays.

With Felicia stationed at Matt's field, I was able to catch just glimpse of his game. Overall, the 6th grade boys' plays were inconsistent though I did see Matthew making several great defensive plays and getting hits. Overall, it was a great experience for Matt, getting a first taste at competitive sports at the school-level.