The Honey Badgers would be facing off with against the reigning SJSL champs Kick Tease. I believe they’ve won every SJSL title to date, including dodgeball. They’re extremely athletic and have give the Badgers the most fits in the past.
All week I tried to think of strategies that could possibly be employed to give us a shot. I didn’t think that we could do anything too different to stop their outstanding guy kickers, but if we could keep their girls off base it would cut down on the damage and hopefully we could hang around long enough to somehow pull out a win.
To deal with the girls we employed 3 different defensive formations (I know this is a bit much for kickball). We would shift based upon whom was kicking. The goal was to take away the girls short kicks and force them to attempt to kick up the middle of the diamond where we’d have 3 guys in the infield and move one of our girls to the outfield.
I printed out diagrams and briefed everyone before the game on what we were going to attempt to do. Everyone bought in and was ready to execute.
Our first three hitter lead off with hits and Julie knocked in a run. Then Dustin and Irena knocked in a few more for good measure. It was paramount that we scored early, and boy did the Honey Badgers come through. With 3 early runs on the board it would put some pressure on the opponent.
We continued our constant shifting in the field, and had our finest hour in the field. Play after play was made. It was like a kickball machine out there with everyone in place and backing up one another. I was so proud to watch. Julie made such a big catch down the 3rd base line to save some runs. She got in front of a bullet, and stayed with it and someone came up catching the ricochet off of her. It was a big time play.
By the 3rd inning with a 3-1 lead, I began to think that wow, this crazy plan is actually working!
The low scoring defensive battle would go quickly. I kept counting down how many outs were left for us to make in the game. Even though I couldn’t physically participate it was still pretty intense to be involved. Tempers even began to flair by the normally ice cool yellow team. Our plan was working.
Another standout play that summed up the Badgers efforts was made my Geoff in right field late in the game. With one of the more dangerous members of Kick Tease on first base, a blooper was kicked into right field falling in front of Geoff. Instead of casually getting the ball into the infield Geoff fired a laser to 2nd narrowly catching the base runner for a force out. This most likely save us yet another run in a very close game.
Top of the 7th in a 3-2 game with the top of our lineup coming up we all knew that we had to someone find a way to tack on more runs to give us some breathing room in the bottom of the 7th. The troops really came through knocking in 1 more run that inning to give us a 4-2 lead.
Bottom of the 7th, with a 2 run lead is by no means at all safe against Kick Tease. We stuck with our shifting and they were able to knock in a run still making it 4-3 with 2 outs in the inning with a runner on 2nd. With one of their quicker girls coming up to kick we shifted yet again and really pressed her to dare her to kick in the air. She put in on the ground in excellent placement but a perfect throw and catch from John K. to Sean sealed the deal.
The Honey Badgers in what would turn out to be their finest hour won the playoff game and would advance to the championship! I did request that we didn’t celebrate and immediately shake Kick Tease’s hands. They are a fantastic team and it wouldn’t be right to celebrate in the face of such a proud team.
Our next opponent on the night in the championship game would be the undefeated Terror Squad. Again, we got off to a terrific start knocking in a few runs and narrowly getting out of jams on defense as well. The game was tight with some amazing plays on both ends.
It was really intense and between innings we would joke with the other team of just how great a game was unfolding.
However, the bottom of the 6th inning with the sun setting was all Terror Squad. They found a way to knock in kick after kick and eventually run after run. The Honey Badgers just appeared to of run out of steam around this time to me and we just didn’t play our patented Honey Badger team defense. It was sad to watch it unfold, but Terror Squad just had our number that night.
While it was a true bummer to lose the championship game to Terror Squad that night, I will never forget the amazing team performance that the Honey Badger had in our earlier match.