Michael's 8U Eagles travel team travelled to Allentown, PA for the ECTB World Series tournament July 24-26. The team qualified for this tournament by taking 2nd place in the fall end-of-season tournament.The team finished the tournament with a 3-2 record, but there is so much more behind that record. The two losses were both to the same team - the Lehigh Valley Stealth. They are a professionally trained tournament team. They had an ace pitcher that was pitching faster than just about any kid we've seen this year. And they had one huge hitter that hit 2 home runs (in the park) in our first loss to them, and 2 triples a double and a single in the 2nd outing against them - we considered the fact we held him to a single at the end a great accomplishment for the game!
Michael had a good weekend and one fantastic game. After pool play, we were ranked 2nd going into the elimination round. We played the York Young Revolution, a team that had just beaten the Manassas Generals - our ODBL tournament champions. Michael took the mound as the starting pitcher in this game - and never got off the mound! He pitched a complete game! This is a pretty outstanding accomplishment for an 8-year-old. He pitched 6 innings and about 65 pitches, giving up no runs and only a handful of hits.
Michael also was a consistent hitter for the team - not always getting on base but consistently putting the bat on the ball and the ball into play.
This entire year with this team has been a great experience for Michael, with an exceptional coach, and we look forward to our fall season (provided he makes the team after tryouts this next week)
