My son got his first mound time as a freshman on varsity Saturday and it could barely have gone better. Five inning run rule no-hitter. It wasn't the best team out there, but an accomplishment never the less. The opposition did make the state playoffs last year, though. He struck out the first six batters. Between a varsity scrimmage and three innings in a jv start where he struck out all nine batters he faced that meant he struck out 17 in a row. He lost the perfect game in the last inning when the ss scooped up a routine grounder and threw it in the dirt to first where it skipped into and out of F3's mitt. They gave the error to F3. He struck out 12 of the 16 batters he faced and one of the three other outs was a 1-3 ground out. No batter reached three balls in the game and he threw 48 of 67 pitches for strikes.
One of the perks of small town ball (we're 3A of five classifications) is that every game is on the radio. I was able to pull up the archived broadcast and listen to it with him when he got home. THAT was a lot of fun. Especially since, coming in, no one really knew who he was. Sitting at the game, I heard a lot of "who is that kid?" from the parents. He was just absolutely on all day. I clocked him at a steady 84 all game. Never more than that but almost always 83-84 with control of his slider and split finger. He very much enjoyed the 3 1/2 bus ride home with the team.
