THE REBELS ARE ON FIRE

Recently the Rebels played 2 tournaments two weekends in a row. The first one was Memorial Day weekend. Because of the 3 day holiday weekend, for this tournament, we played 2 games on Saturday AND 2 games on Sunday and Monday was the championship series. So we won both games Saturday and won both games Sunday which put us in a great position for Monday. We just had to play 2 games to make it to the championship game and lucky for us we managed that. And for the first time in Rebel history we came out champions. I am not gonna lie....it was HOT! TEXAS HOT! And by the third game (the other team was on their third game too) every boy and coach out there was worn out. It was a lesson in endurance and luckily our boys came out on top.

There were 20 teams in the tournament. We played 7 games, we WON 7 games and we drastically outscored our opponents. Within those 7 games our boys socred a total of 104 runs and we only allowed the teams we were playing to score 38 total. That means our bats were on fire and our defense was unstoppable.

Colson made some fabulous defensive plays.....as you can see from his dirty pants above. And we just so happen to have a photographer dad who takes about 1000 pictures per tournanment and managed to capture this one beautifully.

Colson dove for the ball to make a stop.

Pitched it to Jaylen who was covering 2nd.

And I love how they are both looking at the umpires (each at different ones) to see "Did we do it?". If you look closely enough you can see a small smirk on Colson's face that shows he was OUT!

This one could have turned out to be a pouting session but since it turned out to our favor, I think it's cute. Here's a little baseball lesson. If the ball is hit to the right of 2nd base, Jaylen, our shortstop, covers 2nd. If the ball is hit to the left of 2nd base, Colson covers 2nd base. It gets tricky if the ball is hit straight up the middle. Their instinct is to both cover the base. So in this case the ball is hit straight up the middle, Hutton (on the pitchers mound)  fields the ball and goes to make the play at second. Colson and Jaylen are both there. I think it's funny that they both know that one of them caught the ball, but they weren't sure which one had it.

The very next weekend we played a much smaller tournament in Huntsville. Only 8 teams but we still came out on top. Again, it was super HOT! We played two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday...and again we won all 4. For the most part, all of our boys hit good all the time. Of course some days are better than others in the box but even on a bad day, our boys hit well. We have 4 boys on the team that are capable to knock it out of the park and have. Coach has 3 of them batting back to back. Matthew, Cole and Colson...and then Jaylen bats later in the line up. Jaylen and Matthew haven't hit it over this season but they've come close and  I know have done it before. So on the first game on Saturday Cole gets up to bat, swings and it's gone! Clears the bases (I think there may have been 2 on base) only for Colson to get up and do the exact same thing....even hit it in the same spot. You know the other team was going "Uh oh!" I usually only record Colson's at bats when Wes isn't there but I happened to record it so I could send it to my Dad since he was missing the game.

And then in all the excitement I stopped recording until I remembered that I should get the whole thing.

We finished the game and won. And had a couple hour break. After the game he told me he wasn't feeling well but I just blew it off as overheated. And then he sat like this at Chicken Express. 

By the end of the second game he was not feeling well at all and actually sat out the last inning. We went home and he layed in our bed and fell asleep for 2 hours...he had 100.8 temperature. Not sure what it was because he was ready the next day!

If there is an early Sunday game, Wes always misses because he plays Bass guitar at church. Well this particular Sunday I had a baby shower I was giving for Robyn at my house so I was hesitant to even go to the first game. I managed to have everything ready and figured, I'll go to the first game, Wes and I can probably pass each other on the freeway on his way to the second game (should we play) and on my way back to our house for the shower. I had it all timed and planned out perfectly. I've told you how Colson is about us leaving him places. He wanted one of us at his first game. And I'm so glad I did to witness this....

Yes...two days in a row, he hit one over the fence. And in the championship game that I missed, Cole hit one over the fence with the bases loaded... a grand slam! Another Rebel victory! Another great weekend of baseball!