Holy hit-fest, Batman!!!  

The coaches arrived at the park worried about having only 8 healthy players plus one player returning from an injury.   With four players away at a band concert, we figured it would be an interesting game (little did we know!).   One player, who shall remain nameless (LA) ditched band in favour of softball (we don't recommend this, but we did love it!) so we were able to assign our injured player to light duty and play with a full line-up.

It was a very tense game in the first three innings!!   Despite some great hits.....including a triple by Kiesha and a double by Lily.....the NL team shut us out.   Our pitchers did their usual stellar job, striking out 10 batters and allowing only two runs over three innings.   At the bottom of the 3rd the score was 2-0 for NL.

The real excitement started in the 4th inning.  At bat, Black Ice was a force to be reckoned with.   A couple of batters got on base with walks and then the hit-fest started.....singles by Stephanie, Brittany, Magena (2 RBIs!!) and Lesley.   We racked up 3 runs in the top of the inning and then shut out the NL team with two unassisted outs at 1st base by JayLo followed by Karley scooping a hard-hit grounder at shortstop and burning to to JayLo for a 3-up-3-down inning.  Fantastic play, JayLo.  At the bottom of the 4th the score was 3-2 for BI.

In the top of the 5th Black Ice was at it again.....singles by Lily, Jayden and Magena along a couple of walks and we scored 4 runs....with the help of Karley and Jaden's RBIs.   In the bottom of 4th Brittany stepped onto the mound and gave it all she had....delivering some beautiful strikes.  At the bottom of the 5th the score was 7-6 for BI.

In the top of the 6th Maddy laid down a textbook bunt and ran it out to get on base.   Then, while Lily was attempting to steal home, Maddy screamed around the bases to 3rd.  On the next pitch, she tore up the base path to home, sliding in under the tag to score.  WOW!!   In the bottom of the inning, we held NL to 1 more run.   Nice unassisted out at 2nd, Lesley!   Final score was 8-7 for Black Ice.

The coaches say that was the most exciting game of the season.  Not only was it a close one (way more fun than a blow-out)....but we saw excellent skills in both offense and defense by every single player.  The bunting, stealing, sliding, fielding....it was all SO GOOD!!!   And all that, with a short-handed roster.  We wonder....was it the desire for ice cream or the fear of push-ups that fired you up???   Great game, Black Ice!!