Travel teams have absolutely KILLED little leagues and all star teams.well, the roller coaster ride that was his 2016 baseball season came to and end Saturday afternoon.
this was his absolute worst baseball season of his life and the first time he's really faced any adversity on the field.
playing up in age with a travel team was a terrible idea in hindsight. he wasn't ready for that and it showed.
his struggles absolutely wrecked his confidence which actually made him struggle even more and it snowballed out of control for him.
so we also put him on a rec team to try to get him some playing time and boost his confidence a bit.
stitches in his throwing hand followed by two weeks of pneumonia sidelined him for the first month of that season.
took him a while to get it going again but finally came around toward the end of the season and into the tournament.
his rec team finished 2nd in the parish. going into the championship game, he was stoked knowing they would finish no worse than 2nd.
but losing that game stung. you can see it in his face in the post game pics, don't care what he actually says.
got invited to tryout for All Star team. 4th invite in 5 years, but had never made it.
this year he finally got onto the roster.
that meant he had to choose between travel and All Stars due to both scheduling conflicts and the cost of all this.
he chose All Stars.
his team swept through the District tournament without breaking much of a sweat.
at the state tournament 2 weeks later, they placed 4th out of 16 teams. Highest finish ever in a state tournament for our parish. first time a team from our parish ever even won a game at the State level.
so for the first time ever we also got to participate in the Cal Ripken Southwest Regional. Regionals is comprised of 7 states.
we were seriously overmatched once we got there. Finished pool Play as the 8th and final seed to get into Bracket Play.
and were smoked by the #1 seed and eliminated in our first game.
8th place in the Region is BY FAR the most successful run our parish has ever had in youth baseball at any age group.
Kids was upset that they season is over, but held their heads up knowing that they fought like hell and made it farther than they ever were expected to go.
My son went from down in the dumps and in the worst funk of his life early in the year, to making an all star squad, to getting a rally sparking RBI in an elimination game at State, to starting 2B in bracket play at the Cal Ripken Regional.
Was one hell of a ride this year, but it was a rife i think he needed to take.
Everything came easy for him before this year. But through all his struggles, he learned that quitting wasn't an option. But more importantly he learned how to fight through the tough times and how hard he's got to work to get what he wants. All on his own, he started going to the cages to get more swing in. He begged anyone who would listen to go hit grounders at him. He put it in as much time with baseball (outside of regular practices) as he possibly could to elevate his game to where it needed to be.
It really is a shame and huge expense for all involved.
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