The clock struck midnight

bymmadden99

82 followers

8 years ago

A Cinderella story.......almost.

Yesterday the clock struck midnight on my 9 yr old son's little league season. It certainly did not begin as well as it ended. Out of 12 regular season games, we had 2 wins. (1 from a forfeit) However, it is not how you start, but how you finish! You could tell things were starting to turn around for us the last few weeks of the season. Games were getting close, and even though we still lost, the boys continued to improve. Our first official win came on the second to last game of the regular season against the 2nd best team in the league. That was a thrill and the boys went crazy. All the work and practices and keeping the faith paid off for them. That was huge to send the message that eventually, hard work pays off. We definitely went into the playoffs with some momentum, and although we did not win our first game, we battled hard and made it close. The second game of the playoffs we continued to play well, and eventually beat the other second place team in the league for our first playoff win. 3 days later we won again and were one game from the championship. Yesterday the boys were pumped and we started well, keeping the game close through 3 innings. One amazing play was when a first year player, who has struggled at the plate all season, got a hold of one and hit it over the fence, and the bases were loaded! A grand slam!. What a great event for this boy. He is a great teammate and a hard worker. Well deserved. I was thinking that was the hit that was going to send us onto the championship! But it was not to be, as the other team continued to grind away runs, and eventually took the lead back. We could not catch up and eventually lost. The clock had finally struck midnight on our Cinderella run. What a great way to end the season though. After the game, the boys were understandably upset, but within a few minutes, they all started to realize what a great experience they just had. Seeing all those smiling, laughing faces made all those frustrating early games, just kinda fade away........

This is why I love coaching.