Easily on of my favorite times of year is the opening day of SJSL Spring kickball. The weather if finally starting to get nice again (even more grateful after this past winter), I welcome back teammates and say hello to opponents whom I haven’t seen in a little while. A great time.
While we still are staying with the majority of our past Honey Badgers kickball core, we do have some changes this season. Sitting out the Spring season are both Geoff and John B. As anyone who follows kickball knows, that’s quite a lot of talent to take from a team. Geoff has easily been one of the best kickers in the entire league, and John B. perhaps one of the best overall players.
New to the team this season are Dave and Meghan. Dave has been a most pleasant addition to our dodgeball roster and should bring a bit more speed to our lineup. Meghan played volleyball with us and as a fierce competitor will surely be a great addition to the team as well.
Our opening day opponent was the Fresh Kicks of Ball Air (clever name). While many of them we recognizable from past kickball seasons, they are a new franchise and we were eager to play them.
Unfortunately just a few hours before game time I found out that longtime Badger Kevin was unable to play. After frantically working my phone, I was able to get John B. to fill in on short notice much to the delight of the team (he’s a well liked teammate of course).
We did start off with a bit of rust defensively giving up 3 runs in the first inning. However, we did answer back rather swiftly tying it up in no time. From that point the game really turned into more of a traditional Honey Badger defensive struggle.
We would pick up a run, they would tie it back up, etc. Eventually late in the game we were able to tack on some extra runs giving us a 8-5 lead. Scarily in the top of the seventh our opponent would load the bases with no outs. With a little bit of luck and some heads up plays we someone we able to escape unscathed and held on for a 8-5 victory!
It was a great team victory with everyone contributing in a big way. Everyone seemed most pleased and seemed to have a good time. I do believe we will have a very competitive team this season and look forward to continued success.