Here's my story
I am a 16 yo playing on a 18 and under Connie Mack team. We won states this year and went to regionals. The bad thing was we were missing 5 of our startes because of Empire State Games and Work. We were predicted to go out in 2 games. Well we ended up sweeping the tourny including wins against Mass., NJ, Long Island, and 2 against Brooklyn Youth serivce who had kids who were already drafted and was one of the best teams in the east with 4 kids who could throw over 90 and one HUGE pitcher drafted. During this tourny and the WS i realized even more how little velocity means if you can't locate or if you don't have a good off-speed pitch. We were called the "bad news bears" in all the newspapers and we were definitly the under-dogs going into the WS. We were a very young ball club but during states and regionals we just had more heart than any team i have ever seen and we just found a way to win every time. We Went to New Mexico for the WS and it was unbelivable. We ended up going out in 3 games, Loosing our 1st and 3rd and winning our 2nd. We weren't to upset though because we were playing against teams who recruit all over the nation and our furthest player away is about 15 minutes. It is the first time our town has ever been out of states and now we came in a tie for 5th in the WS! It has been an amazing ride and i have learned so much this last week in NM. I got to bat against kids throwing 95-98, Division I Pitchers, and kids already drafted, and i am only 16! I Just want to let everyone one know NEVER count yourself out of ANYTHING. If you asked anyone they would have said we would have stood NO chance whatsoever against BYS in Regionals or any teams for that matter. Just work hard.
Just one more thing.....the most important thing for our team is having a good time. If we didn't do that then we probably wouldn't be in NM last week. If you look at us from the opposing dug out we might look like we don't care and were just having a good time. The truth is we do care but if you can't have fun playing the game then why play it. When we lost our last game againt Ann Arbor by 15 runs (pitching absolutly FELL APART) if you came in our dug out, yeah we were pissed but we were still trying to make the best out of it and laughing. That might not be your type of thing but it has worked for our team all summer. This is probably the most laid back team ive been on and this is the furthest weve ever been in a tournament. This was one of the best summers ever for me.
Hopefully we will be back next year because we only lose 2-4 kids.
P.S. I ended up going 1 for 2 with a single, a Strike out, and a walk with bases loaded.
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