Author: Joe

This was our first and hopefully only bad game of the season. Though we played an overall clean game in the field, our opponent Kick Tease was just too much for us to handle on this night. They had several players who could kick the ball a great deal further than any of our previous opponents had yet in this season.

The deep kicks gave us the most trouble. There were a number of homeruns and if not for one guy tripping up on the bases rounding first, another certain homerun would have been had at all. Not only were they kicking deep, but they were also mixing up their kicks making it a challenge to adjust our defense to them at time.

Our kicking on the other hand was pretty much off as a team. While we did get a few good at bats, we just weren’t able to string any of them together to knock in more than one run. The injuries to two of our better kickers was evident, but they were troopers and did their best to play.

Despite the beating, we did have some excellent plays in the field. John K.’s throw across the diamond to John B. at first was amazing. It’s hard to make that throw and get a runner out, but he made it look almost routine. Lauren nearly turned a double play herself, and Meghan and Irena made some great catches as well around second base.

Continuing his excellent play, Kevin made some fine catches in center too. Whether we had Megan or Steph at third they both did an excellent job of not letting any kicks get by them and holding runners to no more than a single.

While this was our first tough loss, I do think that it won’t be too much of a setback. We do play solid defense and know each other very well, which will keep us in and win many games as the season goes on. We just need to get a little more consistant with out kicking and I’ve got to tweak the lineup a bit further until we find a combination that works best for us.

Week 2 had the Honey Badgers squaring off against the Average Joe’s. Being a completely new roster to the fine SJSL, I didn’t know what to expect from them. I just knew that if we could continue playing our solid team defense and timely kicking that we would have a good shot at winning.

The weather was great, much warmer and a great way to welcome 3 players to the team who were unable to participate in week 1. Returning superstar Irena, dodgeball MVP Meghan, and pre-game soccer star Megan were welcome additions to would go one to make big plays as the game played out.

The first few innings saw some solid defense in the field, with both sides feeling each other out. We were the first to score eventually knocking in 3 big runs. The following inning the Average Joe’s broke through with 2 runs as well.

Unfortunately last weeks’ Honey Badger of the Week recipient Dustin hurt his quad early in the game. When I looked to see him not walking out the field, but instead laying on the ground I knew we’d have to play the rest of the game without him. We made our adjustments in the field and marched on.

I must admit that I completely forgot that I was playing 1st base at one point and forgot to cover the bag negating an amazing throw from center from Kevin (sorry about that Kevin). Luckily it didn’t come back to cost us any runs.

The lengthier field dimensions setup more plays at the bags. There were some amazing plays by Irena, Caitlin, and Lauren around the 2nd base side. Meghan also made a pretty great shoestring catch while charging a ball from short, and John K. showed why it’s so valuable to back up a teammate making an jaw dropping catch off of a ball the bounced out of the hands of a teammate.

This back and forth defensive game eventually found us with 5 runs a-piece. Later in the game we just had a hard time stringing together kicks. There were a lot of pop-ups and runners thrown out moving on the base paths.

We moved to extra innings (a first for the Honey Badgers in kickball) where it was a strict defensive battle on both sides. Eventually the game was called a tie as time had more than expired.

John B. who also suffered a quad injury himself (seeing a pattern to our injuries?) gutted through the game and we’re really hoping he’s not going to be having too many lingering effects. As a result Sean was moved around a bit in the field and really stepped up for us. He even earned Honey Badger of the Week honors for his team efforts.

Another great game, with some impressive team play. While a win would’ve been nice, considering the injuries we had suffered a tie wasn’t too bad either.