Softball Disappointments

I am back in State College, safe and sound. My drive on Saturday was much less eventful than Friday’s, not to mention much shorter. I got back to State College at 3, but didn’t get to my apartment until 4 because I made a stop at Wegmans — where shopping is a pleasure — on my way into town since I knew I was out of food. I even had a bit of time to relax before worship team rehearsal started at 6, hooray. In the evening Mario and Jacob came over and played Risk with Petters and me, though Jacob made quick work of us. In this case it might’ve been a good idea to start a land war in Asia, since once we let Jacob gain control of that whole continent, the writing was most definitely on the wall.
My streak of futility against Ben on the tennis courts continued on Sunday, but this time I didn’t even win a game in two sets. Kerrie came out to play too, and then I lost to her 7-5. I fell behind 3-1, battled back to take a 5-4 lead, but then just couldn’t seal the deal on a very warm, sunny afternoon. Oh well. I’ll get another chance to play in the heat this coming weekend down near Dallas, Texas, against Nick from Grad Resources at the grad student Christian leadership conference I’m going to. That should be… exhausting. Especially when the temp will be in the upper 90s with dewpoints around 70. Yuck. Maybe it’ll build my character though. 😉
Looks like I’ve got another time commitment on my hands. I’ve accepted an invitation to join the worship committee at State College Evangelical Free Church. A couple people are stepping down, so Ben & I will be the new blood on the committee. We’re already thinking of ways to change the direction a little bit, and hopefully do some things a bit differently. We’ll see how all that goes, but I figure since I’m playing piano on the worship team so frequently, I may as well have a bit more input on things.
The season finale for church softball was tonight, and we lost to St Paul’s Lutheran 15-6. I managed to scratch out two singles in two plate appearances, an RBI infield hit and a solid knock to left, and when the first half team came out in the middle of the 4th we were tied at 6. So the E Free softball team didn’t have a good year at all, going 1-14 plus another win by forfeit. When we started out the year 1-0 we all thought maybe we could finish close to .500 this year, but oh well. So my church league stats this year finished at 10-for-18 with 2 runs scored and 3 RBI, if I’ve tallied correctly.
I actually hadn’t played in a game in the church league since early July, because of conferences, vacations and meteo IM league. Our IM team actually made the playoffs, and last week when I was gone won two wild playoff games, including one by a 20-19 score against a team that beat us in the regular season. Our playoff semifinal and final were supposed to be tonight, but this morning we got a call from the IM staff letting us know that our games were postponed until tomorrow night, because Thursday’s games were rained out and moved to today. So while that allowed me to play in one more church game, it means we’re likely going to have to forfeit the IM game. It just looks like we’re gonna have too many players either on vacation or unable to play because of other schedule conflicts. If only they’d let us know on Friday, maybe we could’ve worked something out… But we may still be able to play, I think there’s a decent chance Nat would stick around for the championship game if we won the semifinal, especially if we’d have to forfeit otherwise. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
In the exciting world of Australian Rules Football, the Geelong Cats won their 14th consecutive game this weekend, defeating the Adelaide Crows by a tally of 103-70, running their record to an impressive 16-3-0, with just three games remaining in the regular season. The win also clinched the minor premiership (regular season title, #1 playoff seed) for the Cats. Their scoring percentage has risen to an astounding 160%. To put their scoring and play in terms of American football, they’re basically outscoring everyone by a margin equivalent to 38-24, on average, with the occasional 13-9 muddy-field defensive slugfest or 55-13 blowout thrown in. Their next game is against the (North Melbourne) Kangaroos, and the Kangas, mired in a 4-way tie for 2nd place currently, are actually the last team to beat the Cats, way back in April. The Cats are certainly going to be the prohibitive favourite to win the Grand Final this year, with the way they’re playing. I just looked up when their last flag was, and they haven’t won the premiership since 1963. That’s quite a drought, hopefully they can end it this year!