I hope you like softball, because you’re going to get a
lot of it here for a while. I’ll put up
a couple of mild spoilers. One, I got my
$25 worth of ticket, easy. Two, in spite
of the 95 to 100 degree temperatures with no cloud cover, I somehow managed not
to get burned to death. Well, at least
the weather cooperated with the tournament with no rain or blowing dust.
I’d been looking forward to/dreading the moment that the
WAC Tournament finally came up on
schedule. I’d had a good/horrific time
at last year’s championship game (5-13-17). The games were almost more drama than I could
bear but had a happy ending. The hot
sunny afternoon day when it happened just about physically broke me and Ron
sitting on those metal bleachers. He’d
been out there for a couple days watching.
I was only there for that afternoon.
So, I wanted to see the games, but wasn’t sure I was
going to be able to endure sitting for that long (at least 10 games in four
days!) in that kind of heat. I finally
decided to take the time off from work to do it, though with a great deal of
trepidation. The other thing I was
cringing from was the thought of writing all this up. Not to mention, there’d be a bunch of
scorecards to figure out, which would likely drive me insane (which it
has). I’d sort of mentally decided I’d
do a quick summary of the games not involving the Aggies and do full write-ups
of the Aggie games. I could even do some
of the writing after the games at night, so my memories would be fresh.
One thing that didn’t really occur to me while I was
worrying was that the games might be really entertaining. That’s what made everything worthwhile. Of course, there was no guarantee of
that. Aggies were the number one seed, but could also come out flat and
lose their first two games, and then I’d be stuck watching teams I didn’t care
about. Well, those other teams ended up
being interesting in themselves. The
amount of notes I took on games ended up having nothing to do with who was playing. These recaps may go all over place in
length. I did not touch a keyboard
during the tournament. I was way too
tired to think after the games. So this
is all being written after the fact.
Let’s get this party started. I never really got the exact temperatures for
the week. I probably didn’t want to
know. It was around 100 degrees for most
of the week. Today, there was a bit of a
breeze to help. Otherwise, it was
cloudless and there was no shade at the stadium. Thank you to the tournament organizers for
providing a cooler barrel of water and cups for the fans. That was a lot nicer than making everyone buy
$4 water at the concessions.
I got my ticket, thankfully I knew what it was going to
cost beforehand. Inside on the courtesy
table, there were programs and these buttons.
There was a benefit to showing up on Day One when the Aggies weren’t
playing. Last year, they were handing
out little souvenir wooden bats, though.
There was a nice little crowd in the stands for this
game between the Lopes and the Roadrunners. They were mostly the families of the
players. I saw Fahren Glackin from the Aggies there. There might have been a couple of more. The Old Man made it, of course. AD
Mario Moccia made a quick appearance.
He spoke with a lady from Bakersfield that looked familiar (Women’s
Basketball coach?).
Danny, who I’d met at soccer last year, was there
too. He had some interesting information. After I’d mentioned that Kelsey Horton had won the Player
of the Year award at the WAC banquet last night. He said he hoped that she wore flats. Last year, she’d twisted her ankle
dancing. Ah, that’s why she was limping
in those tournament games. He also said
that they’re hosting the tournament this year because they won last year. I’d thought the tournament site just rotated
around or was bid for.
The heat was not bothering the GCU girls. They were singing extremely loudly for the
game. (I got worn out quickly by GCU and
their fans.) Danny mentioned
CSU-Bakersfield was leaving the WAC. He
didn’t think much of their sports programs this year.
The Lopes put up a single run in the first. 1-0 GCU.
In the second, it went sideways fast for the Roadrunners as the bases
were loaded and another run was singled in.
The Roadrunners’ pitcher, Summer
Evans, was given a quick hook.
Unfortunately, the reliever’s first pitch went out for a grand slam home
run by Loriann Olson. The inning didn’t even end there. Four more runs scored after that.
It was 10-0 at that point. The Old Man and several Bakersfield fans
left. They missed some interesting
stuff. Kaylynn Burt made a great catch of a Lopes’ foul in third. But right after that, Bianca Boling hit perhaps the longest home run I’ve seen at the
park. It cleared the trees in right
field. That was a monster shot. T-shirts would be tossed into crowd every
time there was a homer. I never tried
for one during the tournament.
The hits just kept on coming. In the fourth, the Lopes scored four
more. Summer came back in with the bases
loaded and got the last two outs. Our
first game final: 15-0 Lopes on a
run rule. The only thing more brutal than
the heat at the stadium this afternoon was the game itself. Sorry, this isn’t much of a recap, but the
game wasn’t very competitive.
It’s a bit hard to hand out gameballs when only one team
showed up for the game, but the whole GCU team really brought their hitting
shoes with them, so we’ll give it to them for that. Okay this wasn’t the best start to the
proceedings, but we’ve got plenty more to go.
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