Last Friday, after a crazy week with what we believe was food poisoning for Scott and Evan, we headed up to Mt. Pleasant mid-day for Evan's baseball tournament. The team was staying at the Soaring Eagle Hotel and Waterpark for the weekend. We arrived around 3pm and went to Mountain Town Brewing for a beer and giant pretzel before going to the hotel to check in and swim. Most of the team arrived by dinner time and the kids had a blast swimming, playing basketball in the pool, going down the slide, etc. People ordered pizza and some picked up a large amount of Taco Bell and we set up at a table in the lobby for the kids and adults to eat dinner. It was a lot of fun, but we needed to be in the room and lights out relatively early since we had a 9am game.
Our first game was against a team from South Lyon at 9am. It was sooo chilly and windy out and we definitely did not bring the right layers for this game, but we survived. The Patriots lost 13-4. We had a gap of time so we met at another park so I could take some team pictures and individual pictures at the Vietnam War Memorial. After that, the four of us headed back to the same brewery to eat lunch. Scott and I got a big sampler platter and the kids had kids meals. The food was just okay and Evan wasn't really feeling the whole dining out experience. We ended up having to get him some McDonalds in a drive-thru before heading back to the field for game #2 at 2pm.
The game at 3pm was against a team from Ogemaw. We won 12-2 and had a game immediately after for the semi-finals against the exact same team since we were 4th seed and they were 5th. We were down 10-3 at one point in the second game, but ended up coming back 19-12 with some very exciting innings with big hits! In fact, we had two kids hit in-park home runs where our dugout cleared out on to the field both times! The kids were amped up. Definitely a memory I hope Evan remembers for a while.
The coach treated the team for ice cream out as a pre-dinner treat and we all went back to the hotel. A parent had picked up a party sub at Jersey Mike's so everyone ate in the lobby and then enjoyed the waterpark until about 9:30pm since we had a later morning game on Sunday.
Sunday morning we checked out after having breakfast in the hotel room we brought from home. The game was at 11am for the quarter-finals. We played the South Lyon team again which was the 1st seed team so we knew it would be tough. The game was so intense and close the entire time and we ended up winning 13-12!!! We made it to the championship game!
The championship game was immediately after so the parents pulled together all our food to put out a tent, table, and lunch for the kids. And then it was game time! We played against a team from Petoskey that had won all their games and was the 2nd seed team. They played really well and beat us 12-2. The kids were bummed, but it was amazing they made it that far with some incredible plays in previous games to get us there. And it was a really fun weekend! The kids got medals as runners-up and we packed up and headed home.
We have this weekend off from baseball, but we are back for a tournament next weekend in Canton. Go Patriots!
