World Series Bound! (week 344)

Go East Long Beach!  For the first--and perhaps only time that we will paint the cars--the Keislers got to play in the Pony Baseball World Series for U6 Shetland All Stars.  There were actually a lot of Pony World Series going on throughout the country for each of the different Zones.  Our Zone was the West, and consisted of the 16 best U6 teams in Southern California and some of the boarder states.  Our group of four contained the two of the best teams in the tournament overall--Chino Hills and Irvine (both undefeated in the qualifiers and tournaments as far as we could tell).

The tournament started Thursday in San Marcos, just west of San Diego.  We had been practicing 3 days a week with 3-4 games per weekend for some time so we thought we were in pretty good shape.  The only problem was that the slump that started in the 3rd inning of the District Championships continued into the World Series.  After scoring 50 runs in just 10 innings, we only scored 10 runs in the next 17 innings and ended our season at the World Series with three straight losses.  No one could hit.  The only bright spot was that I went 2-4 with two singles...the problem was that they both came at times with no one on base.  With bases loaded and two outs, down by two in the first game; I grounded out to second to end the game.  It didn't matter though because all I could think about immediately after the game was that there was a water slide at the hotel (or 'mattel' as Chris calls it).

Aside from the baseball, we had an awesome time.  We stayed at the Welk Resort with Grandma Paula and Grandpa Mike, Cousin Eli, Cousin Sophie and the entire team.  There was an awesome swimming pool with a huge water slide.  The parents may have had a better time than the kids. Christopher was very proud of the fact that he could put his head under the water and swim.  He was crushed though that you had to be 42 inches to go on the water slide.  He was only 41 inches so he and Sophie couldn't go.  They had a lifeguard on the stairs up to the waterslide, so we couldn't even sneak him up to steal a ride.       

We played so hard the day before our games that some parents thought that maybe being tired was the reason that we played the game so bad.  In the end, I was emotionally drained and fell asleep less than 5 minutes into the drive home and slept all the way to Long Beach.