Game Three: Ninjas vs. Rhino Stampede

It's eerie how similar this season is to last season. Our pattern last season was:

Game 1: Lose badly to veteran team
Game 2: Play terribly for first three innings against new team, then rally to win late
Game 3: Remember that it's OK to play well for five innings, and win easily

The exact same thing is happening this season. On Monday we played the Rhino Stampede, who are now in their second season and are getting better. It should have been a good test for us, since we had several good players missing and we somewhat shorthanded. However, like last season, we seem to have clicked during Week 3. We jumped out to a big lead early and basically cruised from there, winding up with an 8-2 victory (and frankly, we probably could have scored more if we had wanted to - we kind of started getting way too aggressive baserunning to the point of being silly and kicking for HRs instead of playing small ball.)

Honestly, it was the best we've played as a team since maybe the first championship game two seasons ago. Which is not to say that we haven't won by more runs, or beaten better teams. What I mean is that I really can't remember any glaring mental errors that happened during the game. Everyone made really smart, sound decisions and it paid off. I think at this point, if we don't beat ourselves, we should win every game.

Also this week in the Division:

- Redrum had to forfeit against Wonderballz because they didn't have enough females! They only have five girls to start with. One of them (Scott's roommate) was out of town this weekend for work, and another had to miss because of Yom Kippur. The Redrum captain tried to get the game postponed because they were missing a girl because of a religious holiday, but that didn't go anywhere. Basically, if you only have five girls on your team (and they like that so they don't have to "clog their line-up" with girls that they think are "easy outs"), you run the risk of this happening. Plus, only one girl missed because of Yom Kippur.

- And, the Valley Girls were beaten soundly by The Trey Stafford Explosion. This was a huge deal based on past history. If you recall, Trey Stafford was the person who had been heckling one of the Valley Girls' best players (Spitz) by reading aloud Spitz's own poetry that he posts on his MySpace. Perhaps the best and most vicious heckling I've heard in kickball. Needless to say, this has turned into a full-blown rivalry, which hasn't meant much since the Valley Girls have been significantly better than the TSE.

Until this week. Final score was 8-4 and I don't even know if it was that close. This was especially sweet to watch because The Valley Girls, as they are frequently capable of doing, had been getting pretty cocky because they were 2-0, and had beaten us in Week 1. (Pride comes before a fall, except in our case, when pride comes before another championship.) I could have told them that beating us in Week 1 is no great shakes since we always lose.

So, when you play really well and win while your two rivals lose, that's pretty much a perfect night.