Evan's Baseball Tournaments at Founders Sports Park

 Evan had his first baseball tournament the last weekend in April.  Unfortunately, it had rained a lot leading up to his games on Saturday and the field conditions were pretty rough.  They had their first game at 10am against another Precision Patriots team out of Oakland County.  They clearly had played together for at least a season and were more experienced in tournament rules and stealing bases.  We did our best, but fell short 13-5.  Evan had two at-bats and hit one RBI single.

We stayed at the park since our next game was at 2pm.  I ran out to get Jimmy Johns for lunch for us and Evan enjoyed running around with his teammates and having fun.  There was a pond there that they liked feeding the ducks and fish.  

Our next game was against the Downriver Hawks, another good, established team.  Again, we did our best, but had a really tough first inning and let in a lot of runs that we then couldn't dig ourselves out of.  We lost 18-4.  Evan had two at-bats and had two singles.

It was a long day of learning how to play in a tournament and even though it didn't turn out the way we wanted, I do think the boys learned a lot and will improve as the season goes on.  Our game on Sunday was rained out and the tournament was cancelled so it ended up abruptly.  

The following weekend, Cinco de Mayo weekend, we had another tournament at the same field.  We had an early 8am game against the Downriver Hawks, but this time we came prepared!  It was incredible to see how much the team improved over the week.  We still lost 7-3, but made it very competitive and we could have won the game.  Evan had two at-bats and had a single RBI.  He's been doing well at the plate (knock on wood).

We went home in between games since our next game wasn't until 2pm.  I made everyone lunch, I walked the dog, I helped Sean with his homework and Evan rested.  We were back by 1pm to play the HVBSA team.  It was a competitive game going back and forth each inning, but ultimately we won 13-10 with some great hits and some great pitching!  Evan had another RBI single.  This win helped them rank 3rd place in their pool and make it into the semi-finals on Sunday.

Sunday our game was at noon.  There was some rain in the morning, but the games went on as scheduled with no delays.  They were scheduled to play the number 2 seed, the Rochester Rays.  This team was good.  We were winning at one point, then we were tied, and then we had one bad inning that they were able to score a lot of runs on us and we ended up losing 11-1.  The Rays went on to the championship game against the Downriver Hawks and ended up winning the whole thing.  I'm proud of Evan's team for making it to the semi-finals at only their second tournament!  They played hard!

I'm excited for our next tournament the 19th-21st in Mt. Pleasant!  We'll be staying at the Soaring Eagle Waterpark with the team so it should be a fun weekend getaway!  Hoping for some good baseball games too!