The weekly sports wrap-up

It was a busy week on the sports front, starting Wednesday with a soccer game against the White team. Our goalie was on holidays, so it was one of those who-gets-stuck-playing-goal scenarios. Seeing as how I've been nursing a groin injury for freakin' ever a few weeks now, I volunteered to play net for the first half.

I did OK, and made a couple of stops, but did let in one dribbly little goal that I could have had a better play at. But our defence did a magnificent job of clearing the ball and keeping shots to a minimum. On the one that I did let in, our captain said it was his fault -- he's very good at taking ownership, even when it wasn't exactly all his fault -- and said I did a great job.

I played my usual forward position during the second half and very nearly had a picture-perfect header goal that would have tied the score at 1 goal apiece. Alas, their goalie just barely got a hand on it and punched it over the net to keep me off the score sheet. In the end, we lost 3-0. If we had our regular goalie, I'm pretty sure we would have won, but at least we gave it our all and kept it more competitive than the score would indicate. And my captain said he made a mistake in putting me in goal -- that my absence from the forward line was bad for the team, because I wasn't there to provide my normal spark and excitement. I love my coach ; )

Thursday was a slo-pitch game that ended in disaster. During the top of the first inning, we were fielding and had two outs. Things were looking good, when they got a few hits and had started a two-out rally. Then they got another hit, and one of their players was running from 2nd base to 3rd. Suddenly, he slowed down, began to stumble, and started falling to hit knees. He pitched forward, dropping face first onto the baserunning path, and started gasping for air, choking in dust, and convulsing. Our 3rd baseman turned him over so he could breathe, and then a few people jumped into action. They started first aid, eventually doing CPR for a very long time as we all waited for the ambulance to arrive.

I won't go into too much detail but, after what seemed to be forever, the ambulance finally arrived and he was taken to hospital. We have gotten a few updates on his condition, the lastest one being that he regained consciousness briefly, then struggled to breathe, and was sedated and hooked up to a ventilator. He's in critical condition and is certainly not out of the woods, but our entire league has him in our thoughts as we struggle with the whole thing. How could someone who's around my age, and seems fairly healthy and fit, have his heart simply stop working so suddenly and without warning?

Obviously, the game was postponed and will be rescheduled at some point in the future.

Today we had our first slo-pitch double-header on what turned out the be the hottest day of the year thus far. We soldiered on, despite the heat, and managed to split the games. We beat a good team in our first game, taking a squeaker by 6-5 on a last-inning clutch hit by our captain, Sindee. I batted terribly, fielded OK, and felt a bit disappointed overall. Still, we won the game and felt pretty good.

The second game was a whitewash. We lost 11-5 and were never in it, at one point trailing 9-0!! I batted terribly again (but at least got on base this game, unlike game #1) and was OK in the field. I know that I can't be perfect in the field all the time, and that I'll improve as I play more games, but the perfectionist in me wants to be perfect all the time : )

So that's the weekly wrap-up. Our soccer record stands at two wins and three losses (those three losses coming all in a row, after having started the season with those two win), while our slo-pitch record is now 2-4. We clearly need to ramp it up to notch up a few more wins!!