After over four months of being shut down due to a pretty nasty elbow injury and surgery, I finally was able to play, albeit a bit sparingly. It was a pretty awesome night.
Since I was wearing shorts in the middle of November, as my teammates arrived they all seemed a bit excited as I figured out that I would be attempting to play in last night’s game. I’ve got some really amazing and supportive teammates, and it was really great to see how excited they were for me, it made my usually calm self a bit excited too.
While my right elbow is probably still two months away from throwing shape, I did commit to using my left during the game. In warm ups, I can actually get some ok velocity and accuracy with my left after several weeks of practice. In a game however, where everything is sped up and I can’t mentally go over each step it was a much different story.
Throwing with my left was a disaster. One of my throws came our so early that it literally hung up in the air for what seemed an eternity. In fact, I could hear teammates complain about it before it was caught it was in the air so long. So, at that point I realized that my contributions couldn’t come from throwing that night.
So, I figured I could still contribute by gathering ammunition and giving it to the closest available teammate. This approach did work and I felt was a benefit to the team.
Another technique that I attempted was to server as a block for my teammates, aka “Human Shield”. This surprisingly was very effective and I think bought some of my guys some extra time and allowed them to get closer to the line knowing that I would jump the angles in case of retribution throws as they backed away from their throws.
All in all it was a pretty awesome night, and I was very glad to be back.
The Honey Badgers would go on to win a very dramatic overtime victory! Our team really played hard last night, and we really did a great job of supporting one another. It was pretty great to watch.
Even thought I’m still very limited, it’s pretty amazing to be back and able to contribute to the team!