Our playoff opponent was a very familiar one, the Lightning Donkeys. This season we were 2-0 against them, yet when we met in last season’s playoffs they were the team that sent us home. So we were hoping to continue with our season 2 trend to continue against them.
Unfortunately we would be without the services of Brian and Katie. We did attempt to recruit one time replacement player Laura (who did an amazing job), but sadly she couldn’t play that night. So we would be down to a squad of 4 girls for the night.
As game time approached, it was looking a bit on the bad side for us. We only had 3 guys with just minutes before the game began. However, just moments in time the remaining 3 did show up and we would have a solid squad of 6 to work with on the night.
In the opening matches we played pretty poorly. I don’t know if we were too tense, not warmed up enough of being short a girl was the detriment. All I know is that we were not playing nearly as well as I’ve seen us play this season. The guys seemed a bit dejected with our poor start, which worried me. It was very early in the match still, and we could easily come back at this point.
Luckily are girls did settle in and began to win matches for us. Steph had an amazing game, the best I’d ever seen her play. The other girls all stepped up their game as well and fought valiantly as 4 against 5.
Down 8-4 and now facingĂ‚Â elimination, our guys had finally awoken. I don’t know what took us so long. We were finally not only playing well, but playing extremely well as a team. Some of those late matches were perhaps the finest team dodgeball we had ever played.
Jared was making big catches, bringing back players for our side. Shawn, Jonathan, and myself were all throwing great. It was probably the best I had overall been throwing all season. I was able to let it rip with little inflammation in the shoulder for a rare night. Kevin as stepped it up and was playing brilliantly with us all as well too.
However, despite our late gutsy rally, the hole we found ourselves in was too deep on this night. Down 1 girl against Meghan, she made an amazing catch on a fantastic throw by Meghan to end our season.
I was really disappointed that we weren’t able to win and play next week, but was very proud of how hard everyone fought even when the odds greatly against us. I was truly honored to of played along this group. It was so much fun.
Later on I did head out with many of the Honey Badgers to the after activities at the Windjammer. What a fun buch we’ve got. I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone and coming up with ideas of future activities.
Can’t wait for kickball season.