And then there were two. Only two undefeated teams and two defeated teams remain. Congrats to Harper Valley PTA and to Spacepussy on your first wins of the season. On paper they both look as if they were high scoring, high-octane kickball games. I’m interested in finding out if the Harper Valley vs. Jazzhaus game was a back and forth battle all the way down to the wire or if late game heroics prevailed. Regardless it was a one run game so there had to be some nervous moments. Next week these two teams square off against each other. The victor will be able to claim a two week win streak and a commanding lead in the pool. Good luck to both squads.
Just as I figured it would be, predicting the outcome of games in pool play is quite a bit more challenging because the teams are matched up so evenly. Congrats to Los Matadores, Screamers, West Coast, Ghosts, and Harper Valley for proving my picks wrong.
Out at the Lyon’s fields there was definitely some competitive kickball action. All four teams from Pool 1 played at Lyon’s West and there was a Pool 2 game and a Pool 3 game going on at Lyon’s East.
Los Matadores finally got another chance to play some good competition. Their division schedule was front heavy with competition so it has been about a month since they have been truly tested. They didn’t disappoint either, securing a nice victory against a wavering Slowride squad, 10-4.
If I wasn’t playing at the same time I would have loved to see the Chalmersiz vs. Wildman game; my favorite on paper this week. Since I was playing I didn’t get to see any of this game but from the sound of it, it seemed to be a good one. The Chalmersiz harnessed some of the powers that Mario Chalmers himself brought to town and were able to hold off Wildman to claim a 6-3 victory.
At Lyon’s West Pita Pit jumped out to an early lead over the Goats and didn’t look back. The Goats struggled to find any offensive rhythm and Pita Pit took advantage of a few early Goat errors to jump out on top. Pita Pit played lock down defense and slowly stretched their lead, eventually winning 8-2. This had to be one of the quickest kickball games I’ve ever witnessed. It was kind of impressive how quickly the innings flew by. I’m sure the Goats disagree with me as they ran out of time to mount a comeback.
The 7:00 game was an important one for the Barracudas this week. Last season, Das Boot played one of the most flawless games of kickball I’ve ever been a part of as they took us down in the first week of pool play in Pool 2. They were the last team to defeat us so we really wanted to play well and come away with a win. Fortunately for us, we played really well on Sunday and jumped out to an early lead. It was likely our most complete game of the season and we caught a few breaks as Das Boot laced some great kicks that were right at our defenders. I wouldn’t say this about many teams, but Das Boot has a lineup that can look scary from top to bottom – guys and gals. Keeping them off the base paths is crucial to finding success against them. I like a lot of their players too so it was a fun game for me personally. Thank you Brad, Chris, and Phil for bringing the competitive, friendly shit-talking. It always makes for a good time in my book.
The GOTW was a great game as well. Sunday evening Mother Nature decided to loosen her strangling death grip of triple digit heat and the cool air made for a wonderful atmosphere for kickball.
It took a couple of innings for both teams to shake off the big game jitters, but once they settled in there were some great kickball moments. My favorite memory was when there were two different slides into third base on the exact same play, leaving a cloud of dust hovering over the stadium for about 10 minutes. Both players were safe, by the way, making it even more awesome.
Party!! opened up the scoring with an early run, but from there Shaolin channeled their inner Wu and went to work just as Inspectah Deck suggested they should, “Bust this, I’m kicking like Segall, Out for Justice/The roughness, yes, the rudeness, ruckus”. Before long they were wheeling around the bases and took a commanding lead. Credit Party!! for fighting back though. They never gave up and made a push of their own. In the end there just wasn’t enough time and Shaolin claimed the “W”, 9-6.
It was a big win for the Shadowboxers, who I’ll assume celebrated like ODB would have had he woken up in the middle of the night and found a 12 piece of fried chicken under his pillow: Chicken Fairy bitches!
Lastly, Happy belated birthday to Adam Brazil who celebrated his 28th birthday with a victory under the lights. He was one of my first teammates five years ago when I began playing in this wonderful league. Timely flies when you are having fun.
Stay hydrated,
KM