The Pleasanton Hot Shots continued their winning ways by completely dominating the Incline "B" Tournament in Incline Village, Nevada over the weekend of July 7-8. 7/7/07 turned out to be lucky 7's for the HotShots. Many brides chose this lucky date to get married at the host hotel, Cal-Neva Lodge and the Hot Shots were equally lucky. The HotShots hit over .400 on Saturday during pool play and scored 31 runs in their three games. The offense stayed hot on Sunday as well as they scored 21 runs in their first two games on Sunday. All of this was a lead up to a fantastic championship game against the rival Windsor Wildcats. The result was a 2-1 victory for the Pleasantonians. The HotShots have played and defeated Windsor 3 times this year, all by one run.
Saturday was a fun day as all the bats were hot and this took the pressure off of the pitchers and defense. The HotShots practically had fights at the bat rack as everyone wanted to hit and fatten up their batting averages. The first game was a 10-4 victory over the Los Gatos/Saratoga Magic. Game 2 was an 11-2 victory over the Storm from Auburn. The finale on Saturday completed the hat trick with a 10-1 victory over the Ukiah Lady Cats. Zoe Price, Georgia Bloom, and Haley Douglas all had easy victories in the circle. The offense was paced by Alia Ismail's home run and three baggers by Britannia Bloom, Allie Price, Brittany Hillman, and Georgia Bloom.
Sunday started off as Saturday ended. An easy 9-2 victory over the Lady Cats got things going in the right direction. Georgia went the distance for the victory. Haley Douglas stepped into the circle for the semi final game. It was the Fallon, NV Rockets turn to get blasted by the HotShots. Zoe Price pitched the last inning for the HotShots. For the first time all year, the HS's had two round trippers in one game as Ismail hit her 2nd homer of the tournament to go along with Lauren Ayers' long ball.
The championship game was a very dramatic game. Douglas started off in the circle and pitched 5 solid innings before giving way to Georgia Bloom. Douglas limited the Wildcats to one run, but the pressure was on all game as the HotShots couldn't break open the game. The HotShots got two runs in the third inning as the Bloom girls each got a hit with one out. Ayers walked to load the bases and then Georgia scored on a wild pitch. Next up was Brittany Hillman who smoked a double to score Britannia on a very close play at the plate. Only a well executed slide-by allowed her to avoid the tag at the plate. The HotShots weren't able to get any more runs across in the game, but ultimately it proved to be enough. The highlight of the tournament was a game saving play at the plate in the 6th inning. With a Windsor runner on second and two outs, the Windsor batter rolled a hit through the right side just past the outstretched glove of Alia Ismail. The ball was fielded by Claire Robertson in rightfield and she came up firing home. The ball took two hops and into the glove of Carli Kachel who blocked the plate just like Steve Yeager used to back in the day. Carli caught the ball, applied the tag and the umpire called the Windsor runner out to crush the spirit of the Wildcats. It was a fabulous play that earned both Carli and Claire a blue ball for an outstanding defensive play. There were great plays all weekend on the defense as the HotShots turned numerous double plays highlighted by an around the horn one from Ayres to Bloom to Zoe Price. The championship game fittingly ended on a double play where Britannia caught a line drive at first and stepped on the base to double off the runner. Congrats to the HotShots on a great weekend.
The HotShots gave the big trophy as the tournament MVP to Haley Douglas. Douglas has been the model of consistency all year long and was rewarded for her efforts with the award. The offense was paced by Hillman and Allie Price who hit .500 for the tournament and Britannia Bloom who hit .450 with 2 triples. Ismail continued her torrid summer by hitting .400 and smacking 2 HR's.
The HotShots play in Pleasanton this weekend. First game will be Friday night at 6:30pm vs the Livermore Smoke @ the Upper Bernal Field #2. They will also play 3 more games on Saturday at times TBA. They look forward to playing a competitive tournament in the host league's tournament that all of the girls grew up playing in.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment