My son Ethan’s baseball team won a city-wide championship today, ending their current season and extending a unbeaten win streak to three complete years.
The game was tough – the Mariners were down 8-1 and 12-5 in early innings, but managed to tighten up the defense and tune up the bats to squeak out a nail-biting heart-stopping 14-13 win in the final inning.
Richard Schorn (second from left in the back) and I coached the team this year, and the team probably needed more coaching today than any time in the past year. Winning is great but it doesn’t always prepare you for challenges, and the kids were having a tough time early, getting down on themselves for playing beneath their potential. But they pulled it out in the mid to late innings and won the game with a RBI home run.
Ethan had a good game, getting on base 3 out of 4 at-bats, with a couple RBI.
The most amazing stat is the 3 solid unbeaten seasons. That’s hard to believe, even for me – and I’ve help coach the team all those years. Somehow, we’ve always found a way to win. It’s been a good run, but it’s now over: next year all teams get broken up and new teams will be formed.
Congrats Ethan and the rest of the Mariners!
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