USSSA Elite World Series - Orlando

What a week!! Most of us started the journey with a little pre-vacation to the beach. Austin and I went to Pensacola and saw the Blue Angels from the beach. Some others went to Daytona and others went to Cocoa Beach.

Opening ceremonies were Sunday morning with pool play games on Sunday (6-6), Monday (5-5) and Tuesday (6-5). We tied our first two games and won our third one.

Tournament play began on Wednesday. We won Wednesday (10-2), lost Thursday (8-0, which put us in the loser's bracket), won our first game on Friday (13-0) and lost our second one (7-4) which put us out of the tournament. We placed 13th out of 32 teams......being invited was an honor and these teams were the elite of the elite. The boys played pretty well, but not as good as they are capable of on a consistent basis against teams like we faced.

That is pretty much it in a nutshell. Below are several pictures...between games we were able to enjoy the different theme parks, hanging by the pool, putt-putt golf, dinners out, etc. Our baseball family had a wonderful week.

We did have one mishap.....John Turner took a pitch to the face and ended up with a mild concussion, chipped teeth and a shiner to beat 'em all. He's better now and was out the next day at Universal Studios! We wish him the best for a speedy recovery!

Margaritaville!

Zoe's friend

Don throwing anything in his way into the pool.

All the boys got a chance at being thrown!

Zoe's rocket shoot.

The boys relaxing in the shade prior to play.

Austin swinging the bat - not sure if he made contact with this one.

The boys after our final loss.

Cody on the back 9.

Pitching....

Austin, Dawson and John at Islands of Adventure.

After some water ride we got talked into.....

The boys with the dinosaur!

Austin and Keith on Dr. Suess's Train (this is the only one Keith wasn't scare of - hehehe)

Yes - we all rode that one.

Awwww....aren't they sweet!

Margaritaville

More Bulldog Family.

I think that is Maddox - not sure....

Some of the mom's at opening ceremonies.

This is where we played!

Thank you for following us all year long. We had a great season. Not quite as successful as last year, but we still finished with a 34-12-2 year record. I will start a new blog for the 11 year old season which starts this fall. Stay tuned! :o)

Started off strong at the Nationals.....and then....

Well, this was a weird weekend altogether. Not our typical Friday night to Sunday ball weekend. Since it was the 4th of July, this was a major tournament with a full three+ days. We actually started Thursday afternoon with the skills competition and pin trading. The boys really did well. Dawson Hamilton won second place in the homerun derby with a total of 4 home runs. The kid that beat him only hit 5. Then Austin, Maddox, Cody, Ty and Julian placed second in the "Around the Horn" competition with a time of 6.13 seconds. The winners had 6.03.....we were beat by 1/10 of a second. So the boys really did well.

After opening ceremonies and competitions, we all went to Hooter's to celebrate Hamilton's 11th birthday. Yes, 10 preadolescent boys all in Hooter's....have you seen the posters on the walls lately??

Our first games were Friday morning at 8AM and 9:45AM. The first team was a former rec league team and we beat them 27-0....in just 2.5 innings. Towards the end, we were getting out on purpose to end the game. It was a sad site really. The second game wasn't much better. We won 13-1 and the only run scored was due to a call the ump made because he felt sorry for them. Either way, we won!

We spent the rest of the day goofing off and getting ready for the 4th of July fireworks celebration at the Rec Park in Smyrna. We had a fundraiser selling funnel cakes. The line seemed to never end. We made almost $700 for Disney. The fireworks were amazing as always and the boys had a great time.

Our next two pool games were Saturday night at 6:45 and 8:30 PM. When we arrived at 5:45 for warmups, the games before us were an hour behind and we didn't start our first game until 8:15PM. At the end of the 1st inning it was 5-4, them. We were up to bat and had just tied the game, had two runners in scoring position and one out and Hamilton was up to bat (oh, by the way, he parked TWO on Friday) when the game was called due to storms.

When we got up Sunday morning we learned that we had seeded 1st anyway, probably either due to our overall USSSA points, or due to the scores of our first two games. Our first game Sunday was against the Franklin Heat (another team we go back and forth with and just do not like playing). For some reason we just could not get it together. We made error after error on the field, bobbling balls, making bad throws, missing good throws, not to mention we just could not hit the ball. Two of the boys had one really good hit each and that was it. We could not get on base to move runners or steal, etc....we just really fell apart. So....we packed it up and went home early with a score of 1-7.

Last year we also lost the tournament the weekend before we went to St. Louis. Coach Jay said maybe this will help up get our heads on right for next week! Current record.....31-10. I leave on Wednesday and most others leave Thursday and Friday for Orlando. Stay tuned!

We still own LaVergne!!!

Let me start off with a correction. Ok, so we're not the only team from TN going to the world series in Orlando. We are one out of two teams invited out of 26 registered for the tournament so far. There is another team out of West TN that is ranked higher than us that will be there. But we are the only from MIDDLE TN. Now, that THAT is cleared up.....we have less than 2 weeks before we head further down south!!

Now on to this weekend. WE WON!!!! And I will just tell you up front that I will have some strong opinions in this blog! And not everyone sees it the same way I do, so I will go on record as saying that the opinions reflected here are MINE, and not necessarily those of the team! :o)

This was an open tournament weekend. There was a AA/AAA state tournament being played where more of our competition was playing, but since it was a labeled AA/AAA and we are Majors, we could not participate. So we found an open tournament. Jay (our illustrious coach) wanted to use this weekend to practice some of our pitchers that don't typically get enough time on the mound during play. We have to have as many pitchers ready as possible for the World Series because alot of times, that is what it comes down to....pitching.

We played our first game in pool play in LaVergne Saturday morning against The Crush. We beat them 8-2. Our second game was against a team from North AL called the Tomahawks. We played them last year. What I remembered about them last year was a trick play they had....stay with me. Our runner was on second. The pitcher would throw the ball low to the second baseman in hopes of picking off our runner....the second baseman would fall like he was trying to catch the ball and then you would see the center fielder taking off like he was chasing the ball. Thinking the second baseman missed the ball, our runner would come off the bag to steal third when the whole time, the second baseman had the ball...he would reach out and tag our runner and he'd be out. Perfectly legal, but underhanded and dirty in my opinion.

Well this weekend, we lost to the Tomahawks 6-9. And they had another dirty play up their sleeve. We were up to bat and bases were loaded. We had a runner on third obviously (and it just happened to be Austin). The pitcher threw the ball to the third baseman in hopes of picking Austin off on third and Austin was standing directly on the bag. That seemed strange...why would he even try to pick him off when Austin wasn't leading off? Anyway, instead of throwing the ball back to the pitcher, the third baseman WALKED the ball back to the pitcher with the illusion of 'talking to him'. In actuality, he never gave the ball back to the pitcher. The pitcher gets on the mound, Austin leads off to steal (thinking the pitcher has the ball) and the third baseman reaches out and tags Austin....he's out.

To say the least, alot of us were furious. Though it's a completely 'legal' play, it's underhanded and sneaky to teach 10 year olds to play that way, at least in MY opinion. And not just because it was Austin. I would have felt that way about any of our boys that got tricked into being called out. If you think you can beat us, then come on and PLAY us without the trickery and then if you do beat us, then good for you. But to resort to sneaky plays, to ME (and I keep saying that because it is not the opinion of the team necessarily) is a cheater's way to win. Whew, I feel better now that I got that off my chest!

OK, so we lost to the Tomahawks and ended up being 3rd seed. We met early Sunday morning for a team devotional and prayer and then off to play Showtime Black. We beat them handily. Our next game was at 5PM where we played the Rockets...again we beat them pretty soundly.

Then guess who we got to play again at 6:45 Sunday night? Yep.....the Tomahawks - BRING IT! They had already shown us their trick stuff and that wasn't going to work on us again. It really ended up being a good game....we played each other closely, but our boys just pulled it together and had something to prove. And that was you can win fair and square with just good ole fielding, base running and hitting! Go DAWGS - we're proud of you! Final score 7-4 (I think). Current record 29-9.

What a Father's Day gift!!

For the last couple of years, we have gotten beat out of the Smyrna Championship. Determined not to let it happen again, these Bulldogs pulled together everything they had and played their hearts out.

We had our first game at 6:15PM Friday night. The boys didn't play as well as they could have but it was still enough to win against the Grassland Bulldogs 9-6.

SAFE!!

Then we had a game Saturday morning at 8AM against the Showtime Black out of M'boro and won 8-3. The boys typically aren't morning players, but they still did well. And this left us all day to play. A few of us went to Wave Country and let the boys play all day. As you can see, they had a blast and got some sun!

Sunday morning was the play-offs. Even though we won our pool play, we had given up too many runs to be 1st seed. We were seed #5 and our first game was against the Tornadoes...they are a really good baseball team that we have played many times over the past few years. We beat them and were off to a great start.

The next team we played was from Indiana. We played them once last year - the Smithville Gators. This was probably the hardest game we've played so far (except for those 11 year olds last weekend). They scored 3 runs in the first inning and the score remained 3-0 for 5 innings. In the 6th inning, we tied it up 3-3. In International USSSA rules, you can put the last out from the previous inning on second base to speed the finish up. So we put our last out on 2nd....and after a series of walks and hits, he got in making the score 4-3. So it was their turn to start a runner on 2nd base.....after a dynamic double play and then a third out....we won that game. It was a fantastic game! VERY nerve wrecking.

This brought us to the championship. We were up against the North Alabama Colts. We played them last year too. We got a good jump on them in the first inning with 5 runs and that was enough to bring their heads down. We put at least one on the board each inning and though did score some, we won the game 9-4. Dawson Kula pitched the entire game and got the championship game ball! We didn't get home until after 10PM....long day, yet very rewarding.







These wins are important....not only just because we are winning, but because we receive USSSA points for wins, etc and that helps with our seeding when we go to Orlando for the World Series....which I just found out, we are the only TN team invited!!! Three weeks away!!!!



Anyway, next weekend we are in LaVergne and the following weekend we are in Franklin for the Nationals. Then we are off to Orlando. Our current record is 25-8. Go Dawgs!!! And Happy Father's Day to all our DADS!!!! We got some pics with all our dads, unfortunately, mine turned out blurry!

OUCH!!!!

Well, first I will say that we lost. But not only did we lose, we lost BIG. Here is the story....

Since we won the World Series last year and because of our record and USSSA points, we are the only 10U Major team in Middle TN. When you register for tournaments, you have to register in your own league. Well since we're the only major team, we either have to play outside Middle TN, or play up...unless it's considered an 'open' tournament, meaning anyone can play in it.

So we have played in many open tournaments this summer, but this weekend wasn't open. It was a AA/AAA tournament. Since major is higher than AAA, we were not allowed to play in the 10U AAA bracket....we had to play up to the 11U AAA bracket.

Now, it sounds like I am setting up for excuses and maybe I am.....but last time we played the 11 year olds (and beat them), it was an open tournament and the teams weren't as good. This weekend, the 11U AAA teams were really good. Now, having said that, we still didn't play like we're capable of playing.

Too many walks, too many missed balls, too many strike-outs...and once these boys get their heads down, it's hard for any of them to come out of it. We played three games. The first one we lost 18-4. That one was extremely embarrassing.

Can you see the score? OUCH!

The other two were pretty much blowouts too, but not quite so bad. I only have a couple of pictures here. I wanted to show this one because it was just a good picture of Austin swinging the bat and barely missing the ball.

It was fun having my niece and nephew there - there were so sweet! I think they enjoyed running around. I doubt they even realized we were playing a game.

Next weekend, we're in an 'open' tournament in Smyrna....meaning we can play our own age group. :o) Current record.....20-8.

WOW - What a weekend!!!

First, let me say that I had to travel on Sunday so I missed the entire championship day!!! I was SICK when I found out all that I missed! Apparently the Bulldogs from St. Louis showed up to play Sunday. But let me back up.

We played in LaVergne so it was nice to be local again. The first game was Friday night and we played against a new team called the Murfreesboro Showtime. We beat them 10-1.

Saturday was our first real match up in a while. We played the Mudcats. We have only played them one other time this year so far and we beat them. They are a great team with a good history similar to ours. They win quite a bit and they have been together for a while. We are pretty evenly matched and at any given game, either one of us will win. Well....it was their turn. They beat us 8-6. This was a hard blow for us because we are such big rivals.

There were 14+ teams in this tournament so we were seeded in Gold and Silver Championship brackets. With a loss we were afraid we would have to head to the Silver, but luckily we were in the Gold, though one of the lowest seeds. We had to play at 8AM Sunday. Luckily Karen Kula (Dawson's Mom) gave me play by plays all day since my flight out was at 8AM Sunday.

The first game was against the Tornados. Typically they are a tough team to play, but the Bulldogs came out and run ruled them! The next game was at 1:30PM against a team called the Alabama Attack. This team was harder to crack, but our boys pulled it out and beat them by a couple of runs. And it was during this game that Mr. Maddox Vondohlen had his first out of the park homer of the year! Way to go Maddox....he drove in two runs and opened the game up for us.

Then low and behold, the boys make it to the Gold Championship game and guess who they play? Of course, the Mudcats. According to my cell phone companion, it was nip and tuck (though we stayed in the lead most of the game) for the first 5 innings. Then the Mudcats tied it up 7-7......overtime. To keep a long story short - and believe me, it was LONG waiting for phone call updates, the game stayed tied for 5 more innings!!!! We were visitors so at the top of the 11th we got to hit. With two boys on base, Dawson Kula hit a shot and drove those two runs in!!! That made the score 9-7. All they had to do was hold the Mudcats at the bottom of the 11th. And they did!!! We won the championship in an 11 inning, 3 hour ballgame. I think everyone was having flashbacks of St. Louis last year when we finished at 1AM!! Congrats Bulldogs!

Next weekend we are off and the following weekend we play up to 11 year olds again in Nashville.

Boys take Sparta by Storm - AGAIN!

Well, originally we were going to take this weekend off and have a yard sale. But after the poor showing last weekend in Southaven, the team decided that we needed some playing time. But....we didn't want to play the same local teams we always play. They say you have to play good competition in order to get better.....so we decided to play 11 year olds. We went into this weekend with the mentality that it wasn't about winning, it was about getting better. If you want to improve you have to play someone better than you. If you are always playing weaker teams, you will tend to play to the level of competition that you are against. So, with that said, we were off again to Sparta to play in the 11 year old bracket.

This is how we start every game - we are so thankful for our Christian coaches.

We started off pretty hot. We played a decent team called Blue Baseball. We kept them to 5-0 for the first 4 innings, then we started booting the ball around and let them come back on us 5-4. But we held them at 4 and won that game.

Easy jog across home plate.

The second game played immediately afterwards was against a team called Mean Machine - with skulls and crossbones on their jerseys. We beat them 10-2. This one included an out of the park homer by Julian Shanklin. We came into Sunday being first seed.

Congrats on that homerun Julian!

Sunday, we were up against the Mean Machine team again and this time run ruling them in three and a half innings....12-4. Then we played a team from Chattanooga for the championship. We beat them 5-2 in what was a really good game. Austin pitched all 6 innings of the championship game and only allowed 2 runs scored.


All the boys played awesome. They all hit the ball like they are capable of doing...they all fielded the ball like the Bulldogs we know......and they came together as a team. This weekend was a blast to watch these boys play so well. We are still undefeated in Tennessee....now if we can just win outside of state! This weekend we play in LaVergne, close to home. Our record is 16-4!

Tuckered out boys on the way home (and very dirty!!!)

Beat at Southaven

Well......they say it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.....try to convince 10 year olds of this! We started off really rocky...REALLY rocky.

First of all, two of our mom's got speeding tickets on the way to Southaven, MS Friday afternoon (and yes, I was one of them) and another mom broke down on the side of the road 100 miles out Saturday morning. So, that was a rough start all by itself.

Then someone besides the Bulldogs showed up to play at 9:30PM Friday night. It was funny because they had our sons' bodies but didn't play like our boys. We lost our first game 2-3. We went back to our hotel rooms with our tails tucked.

Saturday morning they woke up with a renewed sense of what baseball is all about! We won the first game 10-1. Daniel Freeman sent one sailing over the fence with bases loaded - our first grand slam. Then a few batters later, John Turner sent one sailing over the fence with two on base. What a wonderful win!

The tournament was set up to start Saturday night. So after one loss and one win, we were seeded 6th and getting ready to play the #10 seed at 6PM Saturday. We won that one 18-1 in the 3rd inning. Yes, you read that right! 18-1!!!! Austin Steel (my son!) send TWO sailing over the fence, both times, bases loaded. He hit two grand slam homeruns in the same game. Then Daniel sent another one over the fence for his second homerun of the day! The boys were definitely on a high.

Austin jumping on homeplate after 'trotting' around the bases following his grand slam!

We headed back to the hotel for a little fun and relaxation. Maybe too much relaxation.

Sunday they showed up looking like the same boys that played Friday night. The opposing team shut us down 0-3 in 6 full innings. This is the first time in kid pitch that we have been shut out. Bummed and sad, we packed up and headed home. We are still undefeated in TN and our record is 12-4. We still have alot of baseball coming this season so stay tuned!