USSSA President's Day NIT

Saturday's games at BLD were against the Ball Club and Desert Dawgs. First game against the Ball Club got away from us early on. I would speculate that their absolutely obnoxious chanting (screaming?) does have an effect on their opponents. These kids just scream and scream until they are hoarse. Personally, it just drives me bonkers and makes me want to leave. They hit the ball into holes in our defense and had an early 7 run lead. We got 3 back fairly quickly, but then just took turns shutting each other down. Final score: Ball Club 7, Finest 3. I'm not a big fan of the Legends, but when the Ball Club is playing the Legends I will cheer on the Legends every time because of the Ball Club's juvenile chanting.

Game 2 against the Desert Dawgs we fairly dominated from early on. Final score: Finest 7, Desert Dawgs 1.

On Sunday Feb 14, the first game was against the Red Mountain Rangers, who looked defeated from the beginning. Must have been a bad day for them. Finest stomped on them and made it look easy. Final score Finest 16, Rangers 2.

The second game at 6:00pm was against the Scottsdale Silverhawks. I don't believe we had played them before so there was a lot of interest in what they could do. The Silverhawks played the Legends just before they played us. Legends run-ruled them. By the time we got to play them, it seemed like their spirits were broken. Final score: Finest 13, Silverhawks 1.

Monday games at Victory Lane...semifinals Finest vs Predators, and Legends vs Ball Club. Go Legends!!! Go Finest!!!!!!!!!

Saturday / Sunday photos

Monday game: Finest gets the flip for home team. I know there was a lot of disappointment on this game but it really was a good game. Predators took an early 1 run lead but we soon got it back thanks to Austin Smith's triple into left center field. The rest of the innings were all about shutting each other down. Great pitching Spencer! Tied at 1-1, extra inning invoked the california rule. Predators end up with 3 runs in the final inning. Finest have last at-bat. We bring in 2, and have tying run on base but they shut us down with the 3rd out. Very exciting game...not too many errors.

Predators have been a tough team for us. We tied them once in the last Halloween tournament and lost to them twice during the league play. They are our's next time...we have the skill, we just need to want it more.

Monday photos

Tournament January 30, 2010

Today, the Finest played the Diamond Dawgs and won 6-4 at Victory Lane. The second game was against the Gators, which we lost 3-1. More coming tomorrow...

Sunday's games were held at Rio Vista park in Peoria. First game was against the Thunder. Seemed to be a fairly easy victory since we were playing good. Final score I believe was 10-1, Finest. The second game was against the Legends. You never know how the game will turn out against the Legends since they are very similar in ability and skill level to the Finest.

The umpires said this was one of the best games they saw all weekend. The Legends took an early lead, then we took turns shutting each other down. Great pitching by Nico and Spencer. Sixth inning and our last at-bat, we had 2 on in scoring position and were down 3-1. Austin and Justin are next to bat. Two outs, we steal from first and second. Legends throw the ball to 3rd base and the field umpire calls us out, game over. The problem was that most of us on the 3rd base side saw the ball pop out so our runner should have been safe. The field umpire wouldn't ask for assistance from the plate umpire.

So, we are out of it and the tournament championship ends up being between the Gators and Legends.

Link to photos

Photos from Carmen Ramsdell

Carmen Ramsdell, mom to Ricky #5, aka "Rocket" was kind enough to share some really nice quality photos from some of the games. Take a look, they are really nice. Thanks, Carmen!

Link to photos

Link to photos 2

USSSA Winter Nationals Super NIT

Sunday's games at Big League Dreams were against the Legends and the Desert Dawgs. The first game against the Legends ended Legends 3, Finest 6. The second game against the Desert Dawgs ended Dawgs 2, Finest 8. Good job Finest!

Monday's games at Big League Dreams/Anaheim field were against the LP Tigers and the Long Beach Fury. LP Tigers took an early lead that we just couldn't catch but we did come on strong at the end. I thought we possibly could pull out a victory, especially when we had the bases loaded with no outs. Alas, we couldn't bring any of the runners in and took the loss, 10 to 6. Lots of fielding errors on our part and unearned runs.

The second game on Monday versus the Long Beach Fury was tied at 1 all for 3 innings then fielding errors cost us 2. Final 3-1, Fury wins it.

Tuesday we played only one game. This one was against the winner of the Gators and Red Mountain Rangers. Ranger were up early but Gators came back to win. Finest versus Gators game, the Gators took an early lead but we came back to win it, 5-2. Next game: Wednesday 11:00am.

There were a lot of upsets with the top seeds losing to lower seeds. One example: The Desert Dawgs defeated the Xplosion.

Semi-finals on Wednesday was Finest vs Aztecs. Regulation game ended in a tie which led to sudden death final inning. Aztecs scored 3 runs, Finest only 1. Thus we made it to the final four but not the championship game.

Photos

Dec 19/20 AZ USSSA Winter Nationals Warm-up

Games 1 and 2 on Saturday, December 19 were played against the Red Mountain Rangers and the Red Raiders. Finest won both games 12-0.

The first game Sunday is against the Red Mountain Rangers.

Final score: 3-0, Finest.

Championship game against the AZ Xplosion. Similar to the last time we played them, lots of errors on our part contributed to our loss. Final score: Xplosion 10, Finest 2.

Photos

USSSA Toys for Tots Tournament

Saturday December 12 and Sunday December 13 was the USSSA Toys for Tots Tournament at BLD and Victory Lane.

On Saturday we played our first game against the LumberKings and won 16-1. Then we played the Drillers and lost 5-9.

On Sunday, the semifinals were against the Legends. Final score: Legends 6, Finest 8.

Championship game against the Stealth, AZ Finest come from behind to win it, 3-2 in the 6th innings.

Way to go, guys! Good baseball to watch.

USSSA Thanksgiving Shootout NIT Nov 27, 28, 29

The first game Friday at BLD against the red Blaze ended a tie at 1-1. Second game against the Stealth we lost 8-1.

Saturday's games at Victory Lane were much better. The first game was against the Aces. Finest won 13-4. The second game against the blue Blaze ended with the Finest winning 13-1.

Friday/Saturday photos

Sunday's games were back at BLD. First game was against the Drillers. It was a good game. Finest win 9-4. So onto the championship game against the Desert Dawgs.

The Finest took an early 3-0 lead. The Desert Dawgs had just run-ruled the Stealth before they played us so it may have been a bit of a shock to them. They seemed a bit dejected as they were walking out to take the field. A couple of runs and some cheerleading for the Dawgs helped their attitude though.

The Finest take the lead and keep it to win 11-7. Great job Finest!

Sunday photos