The Riverdogs won the Pennant! The Riverdogs won the Pennant!

Well... not exactly the pennant but they did do the theoretically impossible.  "Riverdogs" is the name of the West Raleigh baseball team Titus played on this fall.  It was a nice group of kids, Chris helped coach but at the end of the season they were the 8th ranked team with a 2-10 record.  This meant going into the single elimination tournament on Monday they had to face the #1 team, the Bees.  Therefore, according to statistics our baseball season would be over Monday night.  

The Riverdogs knew nothing about statistics.  They beat the Bees 11-10!  I'm not sure who was more surprised the Riverdogs or the poor Bees.

Okay, that meant a practice was added to the schedule on Tuesday to prepare for their second tournament game on Wednesday, which was against the other underdog team that had won, the #5 Lookouts.  Titus did his part this game catching a fly ball and making a double play.  But still, what was the chance of winning two in a row when they had only won two games the whole season?  Well, this is why I think statistics are for crumb, because the WON this game too, 19-9!  That meant they would play in the Championship game on Thursday against the #6 Seed Mudcats.  

This game was a bit more of a nail biter than the first two.  They were down 0-5 top of the 5th (They only play 6 innings at this level) and they were at the bottom of their hitting order.  Despite many parental and sibling tries to get the team excited, they were just flat.  It didn't seem like they were going to pull out the impossible.  Then suddenly the bottom of the order starts hitting and they don't stop till they get ahead 7-5.  Two runs is not much of a lead in baseball.  They had to play perfect defense the next two at bats to keep their lead.... and they DID!  I was an emotional wreck by the end of the game.  I'm not sure if the kids or the parents yelled more those last two innings but the parents screamed the loudest at the end.  What a game!  What a tournament!  What a week to remember!