One out stood between us and the third seed in the playoffs.
For us to have any hope at making the championship, that’s the seed we’d need.
Coming into Wednesday, which was the final day of the regular season, we were in sixth place — but as fate would have it, the playNOLA Kickball scheduling gods smiled favorably upon us. Since an earlier game got rained out, we had a doubleheader lined up against the teams in third place and fifth place. Plus, we owned the tiebreaker over the team in fourth, so if we handled business the path was clear for us to jump three spots on the final day.
Well, only two players showed up from “Drunk & Looking To Score,” so we won the game by forfeit and waited around for the second game of the twin bill against “Late Night Pizzas.” The hour gave us valuable time to bond as a team and I must say that “Black Balls” is a solid unit despite being comprised solely of free agents.
Fast forward to the game and it was a back-and-forth affair the entire time.
Our opponent jumped out to a 3-0 lead, then we swung back to tie it up.
We inched ahead 6-3, then our opponent rallied to even the playing field.
Finally we got some separation when it counted (read: top of the seventh inning) and scored four runs to go up 10-6.
We got two outs pretty easily in the bottom half of the frame, but then they pushed across another run to make it 10-7 and had runners on second and third before we could blink. So you could say the pressure was on.
The next kicker drilled a sinking line drive into right-center field, right where I was standing. Knowing I had to keep it in front of me, I charged to nab it off the short hop and fired a throw to first hoping two things: that it wouldn’t bounce off the first baseman’s hands and I’d be able to record the final out. Sure enough, it was a bang-bang play at first and the gracious referee called the runner out.
Game over.
Third place secured.
Celebration commenced.
Bring on the playoffs.
AB | H | R | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | |
Game Stats | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Season Stats | 14 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 1 |