Softball fundraiser at Hacienda TODAY!!!

Head over to the Goshen Hacienda TODAY to help raise money for my softball team.

All you need to do is show up and turn in one of the tokens with the check for your meal and we'll get 20%.

It doesn't matter what time you go. The only catch is that you need to pay with cash, debit card, or credit card. No gift cards will be accepted.

NW picks up wins 2 and 3

The softball team picked up wins 2 and 3 on the season yesterday at ECA.

They prevailed 4-0 against ECA in the first game while I was serving my one-game suspension on the bus. By the way, I have sent a letter to the commish of softball down in Indy documenting the umpire's lack of professionalism during the game in which I was tossed from. I'll let you know if I get a repsonse.

In the second game, we won 10-inning marathon against LaVille, 11-10. The game should've ended after the 7th though. We were ahead 10-8 in the top of seventh with 2 outs and runners on first and third. The third batter in my lineup drilled a home run over the left field fence giving us a 13-8 lead, or so I thought. After the play was over, the other coach appealed to the ump that the runner from second base didn't actually touch the plate until after the runner from first touched. The umpire proceeded to call the runner who was on second out, which was the third out of the inning. That meant that we got zero runs from a three run homer. LaVille scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game up and send it to extras.

We ended up winning so the mistake is something that we can laugh about now.

Softball fundraiser at Hacienda

Head over to the Goshen Hacienda tomorrow (Monday, April 28th) to help raise money for my softball team.

All you need to do is show up and turn in one of the tokens with the check for your meal and we'll get 20%.

It doesn't matter what time you go. The only catch is that you need to pay with cash, debit card, or credit card. No gift cards will be accepted.

Heartbreak in Albion

The softball team fell to Central Noble tonight in 11 innings, 4-3. My senior pitcher was great pitching 8 and 1/3 innings with only one earned run and eight strikeouts. However, we failed to capitalize on several crucial scoring opportunities and wasted the great pitching performance.

We're now 0-2 and have one more game tomorrow before we take next week off for Spring Break.

Softball Update

Most of you know that I'm the head softball coach for high school in town. Last week was our first week of games. We only ended up playing one out of our four scheduled games due to the craptastic weather in Northern Indiana.

We were defeated 5-1 last Monday in our season opener by Tippy Valley. The positive was that we had zero errors on defense. The negative was that we struckout 11 times and only had one hit.

We're supposed to have three games this week before we take a week off for Spring Break. The weather doesn't look too promising however.

End of the Road

My team's season came to an end tonight when we were defeated by West Noble, 8-5. West Noble had previously beaten us 11-3 earlier in the season so I was happy that we turned in a better effort this time around. We finished the season with a record of 7-18.

Overall it was a good first season as head coach. We increased the win total from 3 to 7 and also picked up a sectional victory over Angola. Hopefully this season is the beginning of an upward trend for NW Softball. The goal for this season was 6 wins and the goal for next season will be 10 wins.

Win #7

My softball team picked up win number 7 tonight by downing Angola in the first round of the sectional, 12-10. It was one of the longest games I have been involved with spanning almost three hours. Of course, I've only been coaching three years so I'm sure there have been much longer games.

I won over our fans tonight by catching a huge mistake by Angola's coach. He had one of his girls bat after she had been replaced in the lineup twice. In fastpitch, you can re-enter once if you've been taken out but if you come out a second time you cannot come back into the game. We had this happen before and Coach Stauff and I knew that we had to let the girl complete her at bat before alerting the umpire of the mistake. I was hoping the girl would hit a homer, because that would've really taken the wind out of Angola's sails when they realized the girl was out for illegally re-entering the game. However, she just walked so there wasn't quite as much drama. It was the third out of the inning though.

Our record now stands at 7-17 and the John Wooden Magic Number is 13. We play tomorrow at 5:00 against West Noble.

Win #6

My team picked up our sixth win of the season today defeating Triton, 7-5. We were down 4-1 after the second, but rallied in the middle innings to go up 6-4. The rally started after I was restricted to the dugout by the umpire for arguing a call.

The umpire called my runner out a third when she tried to advance on a passed ball. She was obviously safe, but the ump wasn't in good enough position to see the play. I let him know that he didn't have good position as I walked from the third base coach's box all the way to the first base dugout. I think being restricted to the dugout is one thing the John Wooden of NW Softball never accomplished.

I also decided to be a bigger jerk when I made the umpires restrict Triton's first base coach to the dugout until he changed out of his jeans. Coaches on the field are not allowed to wear denim. Luckily for Triton, the head coach had shorts on under his sweatpants so he let the first base coach put on his sweats.

It was a pretty exciting day at Mattern Field (it hasn't been officially named Mattern Field yet, but give me a couple more years).

John Wooden Magic Number: 14

Picture in the paper

We had an Elkhart Truth photographer at the game last night and she got some nice pictures of the team. The best picture was of the head coach! Last time she was in our dugout she had pictures of the Jimtown coach in the paper, but not me. When I saw her last night, I gave her a hard time and said that if she's going to be in my dugout I expect pictures of me to at least show up on the Truth's website.

Something you will never see in baseball

Tonight I was once again reminded the difference between coaching mens' and womens' sports. My batter drilled a line drive that tipped off the 3rd baseman's glove, smashed into her forehead, and then somehow flew over the fence. For those of you who have been to our "stadium", the ball hit her in the head and then flew over the part of the fence where the big gate is.

Back to the difference between mens' and womens' sports. The 3rd baseman started crying, which was no surprise, but what happened next was something I hadn't seen before. The shortstop went over to console her injured teammate and then leaned over and kissed her right on the forehead where the ball had hit. For some reason I'm having a hard time imagining Cesar Izturis kissing Aramis Ramirez's head if he gets hit in the face with a ball. No Erv, I will not go kiss Doc's forehead if he gets hit during one of our slow pitch games.

If I was a good coach I would have had my next batter bunt the ball at the 3rd baseman because I doubt she could've fielded the ball through her tears. However, I would've had to walk up to the plate and explain exactly where to bunt the ball, because just the bunt sign from me wouldn't have been enough.

Win #5

My team picked up their fifth win of the season tonight by defeating Bethany Christian, 2-1. Bethany Christian had 9 hits and we had 3 so I feel very fortunate to pick up the "W". I also had a less than stellar night coaching third. I got a runner thrown out at home, didn't send a runner from third on a fly ball, and then got a runner doubled off second by telling her to run on a ball that I thought was going to get down but didn't. In my defense, I didn't send the girl who was tagging up on the fly ball because she's one of my two slowest runner and the girl in center had a cannon for an arm. Anyway, we got the win so I'll learn from my mistakes and move on.

The Chase to Catch the John Wooden of NW Softball Update: 15 wins by the end of the 2009 season to pass him. From now on, the number of wins I need to surpass Mike will be known as the "John Wooden Magic Number".