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Dodgeball Winter 2014 Week 1

Last night was the opening night of our winter dodgeball season. So I was pretty excited as I normally am to see all the familiar faces and meet the new ones too.

However, this start was a bit different in that we had seven of our players not show up for the game! Seven missing Badgers. I wasn’t surprised that we had a few unable to play as it was literally a record cold day last night, but seven was insane! We only had 3 girls.

While we traditionally have fared well against our opponents the Banzai Executioners, the Badgers really stunk it up last night. We just plain old got beat down, and I’m really not certain exactly why. It wasn’t so much due to our lack of girls (though that was a great disadvantage), our guys just didn’t play well.

We pretty much underachieved all night and it showed. I’m hoping that it was just a fluke night and once we get our other players back we’ll start to play a bit better.

All in all it was still a great deal of fun and another exciting opening night to a season.

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Dodgeball Fall 2013 Opener

Few things get me as excited as opening week of an SJSL sport. It’s like the first day of school, when you are bombarded with catching up with so many friends who you haven’t seen in a while. Lots of handshakes, how’ve you beens, and nods going around.

This season was particularly exciting for me as we had a lot of new free agents assigned to the team. I kept practicing their names and did my best to stalk them online beforehand (that sounds so much worse now that I read it) so that I had an idea of what they looked like and I could give them a proper greeting to the team. So I was eager to meet that and hoping that they would be a good fit for the team.

It turns out that they were all pretty great and team first players. Couldn’t of really asked for a better new bunch. They fit right in and brought our team much needed youth to our squad. Their energy and enthusiasm is a much needed addition to our seasoned vets (and I’m getting pretty old and gray).

We got beaten pretty handily against a very strong That’s What She Said team, but as the night went on you could see great improvement on our side, and we were able to win several of the later matches. I was really impressed with how our girls played against a very strong girl team, keeping those throws low and making some catches. I think on most nights that will win us a good amount of matches.

Our guys were very solid too. While we don’t have any extremely strong arms on the court, we made up with it with some smart throws and good teamwork. We really did a pretty great job playing together, especially considering all the new guys on the team.

Honey Badger of the Week Kevin had one of his better games I’d ever seen him play. Not only did he play great and went for catches, he also really stepped it up as a leader on the team! Constantly pointing out tactics to our new guys, he really made us all play better.

Very excited with our new energetic squad and can’t wait to see how the season unfolds.

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SJSL Summer 2013 Kickball All-Star Game

This summer the SJSL kickball league decided to have their first ever all-star game. What a great idea! Each team had to nominate a male and female player to represent their respective team in the game.

Being so amazingly awesome the Honey Badgers insisted that I would be our guy on the team. I truly believe that we have several guys on our team more deserving to play this season than myself, but they really went out of their way to select me and there was no way I could back out of this one. What a bunch of amazing teammates!

Choosing a girl was a bit tougher. Both Irena and Caitlin have had an excellent season for the Badgers in contrasting ways. One dominating with offense and the other with defense. Ultimately we went with Irena, but either way we were sending a great representative. They are both pretty terrific and I’m so glad to have them on my team.

The league also chose me to act as captain for our respective division. Yes, apparently I’m kinda a big deal in the SJSL. If only my entire life were so! An autograph session will be held shortly of course.

So the first order of business was to learn everyone’s name and where they were comfortable playing. I knew everyone’s face, but to finally get a name to place was great. We’ve played so many intense games against these guys over the years it was nice to be with them for a change. I was really impressed with how team first everyone was.

The game itself was very fun. We dug ourselves a really deep hole getting off to a rough start in the field. It was obvious we weren’t yet comfortable playing with everyone just yet.

I have to admit I was pretty nervous the first inning. I had hardly played in the field most of the season, letting my guys play and also resting my elbow. So playing right field with no substitutes did have me a little nervous to start. I did drop one I really should have caught in the first, but after that I settled down and things went well.

Irena was amazing and had one of if not her finest overall games! She really made us look good and came up with some big kicks in some big situations. Mike was dominant at third, pretty much single handedly getting us out of a few jams with some great plays.

While we had some excellent plays, we also had too many sloppy ones too. But that kinda comes with playing with different people. I do have to say that that a few of our opponents girls had some amazing kicks getting behind out outfielders. One of the girls really shocked us with her range, she did not look like she would be launching balls that far.

I didn’t feel comfortable telling people too much of what to do, as they’re all pretty great and it’s an all-star game, so I tried to lead by example. So I decided to run, and run a lot. Covering the infield on every play, helping out at 2nd, being the cut off man, and sprinting on the bases each and every time. I’m not sure if it worked or not, but I do know that I was drenched with sweat and completely exhausted by the end of the game.

Sadly despite a pretty amazing comeback, we would go on to lost the all-star game to a very solid team. They did a great job out there and just made more solid plays on the night.

It was a really great experience and I’m so glad my team was so generous to select me to play. It was great to see all the Honey Badgers who turned out to cheer us on. I’ve got some pretty amazing teammates.

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Kickball Spring 2013 Regular Season

One of my personal favorite things the past few years has been playing kickball in the SJSL. It’s made my Tuesday nights a lot of fun and something I always look forward to (barring the tearing of elbow ligaments of course).

This season we had a lot of new faces to the team, as well as the most players we’ve ever had to manage on a roster. This would prove to be a challenge, especially early on in the season. It’s difficult to ease in so many new faces while also keeping the veterans happy that we are fielding a competitive team as well.

I have to admit that at the end of week 3 I was a bit concerned. Many of our vetereans were concerned that we weren’t the same team that we had been in the past, and I was starting to believe that as well. I had confidence that we could figure out a way to maximize everyone’s talent and field a strong team that was still having fun as well.

Having 14 people on a roster made it very difficult for everyone to get comfortable as there was constant rotations and we weren’t getting many at bats, some games I only got 2! So first I worked on finding fielding combinations that could maximize our existing talent and slowly ease in our new people without putting too much pressure on them to perform. In time we found a couple of combinations that did work, and they really worked mostly because of the unselfishness of our players in being willing to sit more than they’d like to let a teammate get a shot at playing too.

Over the past few weeks we have been an elite fielding team and it’s great to being back at that level.

Our batting order was pretty tough to figure out too. I really wanted to bunch our better kickers as much as possible at the top, especially since we weren’t getting many at bats any more. This was easy to figure out, but that left a big void in the bottom of our lineup.

I tried to mix up some speed in the bottom and hope that our new girls could keep the ball on the ground and an aggressive base runner could take advantage and pretty much execute hit and runs all the time. For a couple of weeks it was looking like no run production would be had from the bottom, but at the end of the season it finally clicked and the hit and run approach at the bottom began to pay off in a big way.

While this hasn’t been the easiest team to manage and win with in kickball, figuring it out and getting it to work has been very rewarding. We have finished the regular season with a very impressive 6-2 record and were in every game we played in. More importantly we found ways to win the close ones and really ran the bases well as a team (to the frustration of other teams at times).

A great regular season with a great bunch of players, and looking forward to the playoffs next week.

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Dodgeball Winter 2013 Playoffs – Round 2

Very excited to be playing on the second week of dodgeball playoffs for the first time, we knew we were facing a mighty tough task this week. We’d be facing off against That’s What She Said, whom has the finest girls squad in all of dodgeball. They’re all very good players.

This week we were lucky to have our full roster on hand, and everyone seemed to be feeling pretty positive coming off last week’s incredible performance. We discussed pre-game strategies and were ready to go.

Their girls took the first match, but ours held their own. At this rate it was looking like we might be able to win a few as the night went on. Our guys took the first match with a pretty solid performance. We seemed to of continued where we left off last week.

The Badgers got off to an early lead when the girls upset their squad and took a win. At this time we were all feeling pretty great and knew that we’d gotten off to the start that we needed to. Now we just had to keep applying pressure for the rest of the night.

Well that plan kinda didn’t pan out. Unfortunately That’s What She Said would go on to win the remainder of the matches that night. It stunk, to see us lose this way after having a great start.

I didn’t play very well. My throws just weren’t sinking like they usually do. It resulted in two of my throws being caught, which is the same amount that were caught in the previous ten games this seasons. Not good.

Despite the loss, I was still very proud of the team. I thought we handled things well, and did give it our all throughout the night. I didn’t see any quit from any one. Even when we were down 6-2 the troops still believed we could come back! I’m not sure we’d have such resolve earlier in the season, so that I was very glad to see.

It was also fun watching the championship game later in the night as well. One of the matches was so excited that a few of us were lying on the floor looking under the curtain just to get a glimpse of the excitement. It was pretty funny.

I’m also glad that many of the Badgers hung around to watch the later games too. It was a true honor to of crafted mat bleachers and hand out with the girls watching some good dodgeball. They’re a pretty great bunch, and I was very lucky to have them as teammates.

Hopefully everyone can return for next season and we can continue to improve.

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Dodgeball Winter 2013 Playoffs – Round 1

For four seasons I’ve been telling myself, one day the entire team will just click one week. Well I was most glad to find out that would occur during a playoff game last night.

Our opponent was Dodgeasserole (green team). When we met previously this season they handed us a loss, with their girls squad soundly handling our girls squad and our guys holding their own. So while we would be the underdogs, it wasn’t too out of the realm of possibilites that we could pull off and upset if we played great.

Unfortunately we were down two girls on the night, with an injury to Ginny and work obligations holding Eryn out. So we would be playing down down a girl the entire night to a fairly strong girl team. Not the best way to start, but oh well what could we do about it. Any and all help would be needed tonight.

Arriving on crutches, then MVP of the team Libby made a guest appearance to cheer us on for our big playoff game. It sounds kinda weird, but her just being there and yelling all the crazy stuff really got the team pumped up. Even though she’s far from playing, she really did make quite the impact on us all last night.

Well the first match was pretty hard fought. Our girls would end up losing a very close on, but wow did they play tough. I knew then, that even though we started off with a loss that we were going to have a legit shot tonight if everyone stayed focused on winning.

Our guys started the night hot and were able to keep up the pressure all game. Wes made a huge catch early that brought John B. back into the game and an eventual victory. The catch can be such a swing play, in this one was massive for us.

The back and forth of matches would continue the entire night. It was pretty awesome to watch the effort and smart play by our shorthanded girls. Even when they were losing a match, their tenacity would feed our guys to go out a play that much harder. We knew if us guys could keep winning, that our girls would eventually break through with a win or two.

On our guys side it was evident that Dustin was stepping up his game tonight. I did my best to make sure he got plenty of playing time and we rode our hot hands. I was glad to make some solid pegs on the night too and got a big catch that helped us win a game as well. My arm wasn’t as live as I had hoped it would be, but if you were midway I was going to hit you and that felt great.

The game continued to go back and forth, with some amazing plays on both sides. Megan made perhaps the greatest dodgeball catch I’ve seen ever. Falling to the ground and doing everything possible to keep that ball from touching the floor. Jared was making big catches too. I continually was reminding him to play hard, and he surely did.

Well the game eventually wound up at a tie, eighth games apiece. This meant a single tiebreaker co-ed game. So we had to pick our squad for this game.

John B. was an automatic selection, he’s simply our best player. Next I selected Julie as I figured she had made some catches on the night and I felt she would be most comfortable playing alongside John B. Next up I had to pick our second girl. It was near impossible to decide between Caitlin and Kristen, as both were playing extremely well and bring very similar, yet different skills to an overtime game. Ultimately Kristen won out in a rock, paper and scissors match to get the honors. Then I sent out Dustin and Kevin. Kevin for his ability to survive if that’s what it came down to and Dustin since he was running hot on the night.

I told our tow girls to play in an assistive role, getting the balls to our guys to throw and even acting as shields for John B. if need be to buy him more time in the match. The strategy was working for us. Before we knew it, there was just 1 guy and and 2 girls for the green. I knew we had a great shot at that point. Eventually it was down to 1 girl for green and she did a tremendous job to hang in there, but time eventually expired.

The Honey Badgers had just won their first playoff game in dramatic fashion. It was great, and I was so excited to see everyone play up to and beyond their potential last night!

We live to play another day!