Ascension is the youngest team from TCCC at Formosan this year and I’m fairly certain they are the youngest team at Formosan. While other teams could get around from diamond to diamond between their games at ease (because of the abundance of drivers) we seemed to struggle around because of the lack of drivers. This being said, a large majority of the team were people who had just hit the age limit for playing in the tournament, making the events of the past two days even more awesome to watch.
I started off Saturday in Centennial Park with the Ascension vs Crusades game. It was a very tight game having only lost by one point. The second game against Honey Badgers was not as great, with a larger point deficit. However, the resounding message from leadership (? this wasn’t CCSA so wasn’t really sure who was on leadership) was to shake it off and play it literally one hit at a time — don’t let the mistakes of the past choke you up for the future plays.
Ascension had a five hour break between their second and third game, so I decided to head out to another diamond to watch the men’s league. This was a very different kind of atmosphere. Same sport but different from what I was used to. Having only played in CCSA, the concept of team-pitch was what I was used to, however, in men’s league, they played it the “normal” (?) way with opposing teams pitching to each others. I saw a whole bunch of different things that I was not used to seeing in softball.
Getting back to Milliken from Berczy Park was a nice bus ride — perfect time for editing. For some reason, I had decided to live-edit my Formosan pictures. At every break, I would have my external hard drive in my pocket, my card reader in the other, and both plugged into my computer as I edited. I also had the vision of making each photo into a mini-advertisement/poster/banner for Formosan. Obviously, live-editing (or whatever the proper term is) isn’t something particularly rare since it happens almost all the time in the professional sports world. Photos are taken and within a few minutes, they need to be distributed online or in print. It was, however, for me, a first. Using 20 minutes to import, sort, edit, crop, edit, and then do some basic designing was a new thing.
Arriving at the last game at 5pm, I made it just as the game was starting up. The game was a tight one, always being +1, +2, -1, -2 points of each other. At the bottom of the seventh, we were down by a few points, but in those last at-bats, we managed to overcome the deficit and win the game! How elating! From a tight game, we managed to overcome and secure a more favourable position in the next round. Obviously, everyone was excited. ☺
The fourth game marked the final rounds of the tournament. Played in the night, it was certainly marking a tiring point for the team. However, everyone played with such a great tenacity: pushing and supporting each other. Even though it wasn’t a CCSA game, it was a game with high spirits, perhaps aided by the desire of and eventual victory.
The fifth game was on Sunday, at 8:30am. I barely got there in time for the start. Some people had, apparently, gotten there at 7ish?! I wasn’t even awake at 7. Tensions were a little higher since the team we were playing was a tougher team and since any mistakes would cost us dearly. Despite the push from the team, Ascension played a great game and after a few solid defensive innings sealed the victory, moving us to the finals of Tier F / Tier 2 / Division F / something.
The last game was originally met with some worry amongst the team since the team we were to play had beat the team that beat our senior team. However, as with the rest of the tournament’s atmosphere, it was to play their best, regardless of the opponent. Only 3 innings into the game, the score had yielded a very lopsided result — for us. The score was 8-1! We were looking at the scores and realized that with only a few more points the game would have been mercied, an automatic win! Playing hard with strong defense and offence, the call from the ump: “12 on third!” had sealed it for us. Ascension had won!
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