A-mac Wraps Up a Great Season

Big D here... just spent a wonderful weekend with A-mac and Lil Lefty in Napanee, Ontario. I dare you to google Napanee, Onatrio... you will probably find nothing more than the childhood home of pop singer Avril Lavigne. This weekend, it was host to 11 teams from across Ontario for the Novice II Provincial Women's Softball Association championship tournament.

Lil Lefty practiced pitching to me and enjoyed the comforts of our over priced Best Western. She was fantastic the entire weekend... great support for her sis'.

The imbedded video shows A-mac ripping a double over the center fielder's head in their Saturday morning game. (The team lost 2 - 1... A-mac drove in their only run) A-mac played the entire tournament in left field and batted third. She was 5 for 13... a 385 average (her hits came against the better pitchers) . Her team, the 14U Oakville Angels finished 5th in this tournament. The tournament was held over two weekends and had over 30 teams from across the province of Ontario. The team did well.

A-mac played on the same team last year. During her introduction to Rep Fastpitch she struggled. There was a streak where she was over-matched and struck out 15-20 times in a row. A-mac decided that she wanted to get better. Over the next year she worked in our basement, at local ball diamonds, at the batting cages in the winter and listened to me explain the intricacies of the rotational swing. She took a lot of swings and got better.

A-mac played "up" this year with girls 2 and 3 years older than her. She held her own and batted 2nd and 3rd the entire season. She had some great hits... some great at-bats.

Now for the REALLY NEAT PART!!!

On the three hour drive to Napanee Friday afternoon A-mac told me she deserved to play on her team and hit where she batted because she had worked hard. This didn't come with fanfair, pomp or ceremony, just a simple conversation in the car. See the opportunities that sports provides to the parenting adventure... she got it... she understands that if you work hard you can do anything...

A great season... but even a more important lesson... :-)