Rough Day for the Saints

After a 7 hour drive to Sundsvall, we arrived Friday night at one of our teammate's house around midnight. We were exhausted, and we all quickly fell right asleep, despite the barking of the dog for the majority of the night, (we think the Sundsvall players planted it!).

In the morning, we donned our uniforms, ate breakfast and headed to the field for warm ups. Just before the first game started, an older couple peeked into the dugout and said "Rakel!" (My Swedish name, given to me by Anders). The two people were Anders's brother, Ove, and his wife, Berit. They were so jolly, and it was so awesome to meet them.

Now for the first game...it's kind of a logic puzzle with multiple parts. How can a pitcher strike out 19 batters in 6 innings? How can a pitcher give up 1 hit, but also give up 2 runs? The answer to both of these questions is dropped third strikes. The first run scored when a girl got on base on a dropped third and then advanced to third on a bunt and then home on an overthrow at third, all in the same play. The second run scored when another runner got on base because of a dropped third, got to second and third on passed balls and scored on a fly ball to right field. Needless to say, our team didn't hit very well, and the game was pretty frustrating. It was our first loss since I arrived, and my competitive side was not very happy.

In the second game, we struggled to figure out the starting lineup since we had only 11 players. We figured something out and took the field. We jumped on top early by scoring 1 run in the first, but that was soon matched. We put three more on the board (I hit a ball to the fence!), but the Sundsvall Mosquitos closed the gap with two more runs. We would be held scoreless for the rest of the game, and a grandslam by one of the Sundsvall American players put the game out of our reach. It was definitely a disappointing day for our team.

Because Gefle dropped out of the league, those wins got canceled, making our record a sad 2-6. Hopefully the games in the future go must better because we have to be one of the top four teams (out of 5) to make the play-offs. Skovde has been much stronger in past years, but I guess 3-4 regular long-time players quit this year, so our team is very inexperienced now. Hopefully this will be a great underdog story at the end of the summer.

The ride home was long, but pretty fun despite the losses. We played 20 questions, listened to music and just chatted most of the way. We stopped for dinner at a pizzeria/grill, making me realize that pizza, kebab, and other meats are the standard Swedish foods. I kind of thought Sweden would have lighter food, more seafood and meatballs, so this surprised me. Looks like Prima fits right in.  We got home around 11:00 and had to unload the van at the field. Diane and I got dropped off at the Dungeon around 11:30 and I crashed after an episode of my most recent obsession: Mad Men!

Here are some pictures from the day, including one of me pitching to Frida (my grandma's cousin's daughter's neice) and one with Berit and Ove!