Chasing Victory: A Youth Baseball Championship Journey

I slowly tread toward the field. The dewey grass made my cleats slightly damp. I donned my glove to prepare for the game with my team. Excited, I sprinted out on the field.

“Hi, Wes!” exclaimed my teammate Alex as I abruptly stopped and caught my breath. The entire team jogged a lap around the field to get ready. When the team finished loosening up, we expanded our muscles. Some of my teammates looked extremely tired. They must had stayed up late the night before in the hotel. For stretching and warming up, my teammates Connor and Evan B were the leaders. There are two Evans, Evan Bowen and Evan McManus. When all of us were done with stretching, I warmed up with my other teammate, Seth. Barely containing myself, I was so excited…

The entire was almost ready for the game. We had already won two games before to get to the championship. The second one was embarrassing. We had an enormous lead and gave it up. Our 2nd batter, Jack had to hit a walk-off single with 2 outs. We were ready for redemption. Our coach had a big talk with us after that game. He wanted us to go 3 innings and 15 run rule the other team (if you are winning by 15 at the end of 3 inning, you win, if you are winning by 10 at the end of 4 innings, you win). He was saying this to get us fired up, we usually played 6 innings. We were all very upbeat

We had gotten three outs. I slowly walked out onto the mound and picked up the still fairly white baseball. It was a portable mound, (it wasn’t permanent; you could move it) so it took a couple of pitches for me to get used to it but I eventually did in time for the first batter. It was my last warm-up pitch. “Balls in, coming down!” shouted the catcher Alex. (Balls in, coming down means he is throwing down to second base for him to prepare for if he needed to) WOP!! Right on the outside corner of the plate. Alex threw it down to first base, then Evan M., the second basemen, flipped me the ball. I went onto the mound for the first pitch