Memorial Day Reflections

By Valerie J. Calderon

It is easy to forget what the Memorial Day weekend is really about when you are very preoccupied with youth activities. But I’d like to pause for a moment of gratitude for those servicemen and women who sacrifice much to preserve the remarkable way of life we enjoy. What a privilege it is to freely and safely travel our good country and to invest in our children and their goals and dreams — the pursuit of which is not a given in so many places on the globe.

It was almost a perfect holiday weekend in Kansas City. The rain stayed away — mostly — and our boys made us proud once again. The Pacesetter 13s arrived in KC Friday evening to play the first of four pool play games against the Yankees from Missouri. A fairly finessed pitcher held us to two runs, and while it looked like we were going to pull off a win — more than once — we tied after the seventh inning. The tournament rules called for games to be stopped in spite of tie scores — a poor decision by tournament management, in my opinion; however, for an unknown reason, our game was allowed to continue another inning. We were subsequently handed our first ‘L’ of the season. It was disappointing for sure, but not bitter. The boys awoke the next morning and played their next game with as much focus as they did for their first win. This team does not mentally fold; they don’t throw in the towel, and they are never resigned to mediocre play.

Saturday morning, the Pacesetters beat the SwingBuilder Saints handily and then prepared for game three against the Mac-n-Seitz Red Sox. While the Pacesetters took control of the game early, good teams, as we well know, don’t stop playing. The Sox battled to within one run, and the Pacesetters defense finally shut down the momentum, earning out number three to end the game.

With one pool play game left against a Colorado team with a losing record, the Pacesetters turned to the team’s resident bracketologist to unravel the scenarios and possibilities for qualifying for bracket play.  (You rock, Clark.) The 13 and under major tournament had 32 teams from over a half dozen states, but only the top eight seeds qualified for championship play on Monday. This Pacesetter team has never before qualified to play on Monday in this tournament.

By Saturday evening, it was unclear what the exact probability was for playing on Monday should the Pacesetters win game four; however, it was clear that they had to win game four to have a shot. The team arrived at game four and did the job, holding their Colorado opponent to a single run…and scoring….a lot. By Sunday afternoon, we knew we had qualified. We were the seventh seed. As such,we drew the 2^nd seed for the quarter final game at 10 a.m. Monday morning.

The Pacesetters played uncharacteristically tentative in the first inning of the quarter final game against an experienced Oklahoma Select team. Select went up 6 runs in the first inning. This proved too great a deficit to overcome. Pacesetter pitching and defense shut down the Select offense for the next four straight innings, and after a huge homerun shot by Jack, the Pacesetters own offense began to gain some ground. Over the next four innings, they picked up four runs. After just five innings, the game was called on time. (Again, in my opinion, major tournaments, and particularly championship bracket play, should go a full seven innings, with the exception of mercy rules.)

The Pacesetters lost 6-4 to the Oklahoma Select, who went on to win both the semi-final and the tournament championship with ease.

The Pacesetter 13s once again showed their ability to rally, focus, support one another, and produce, when the game is going their way, and even more impressively, when it is not. Congratulations, Pacesetters, on a very respectable performance at the Memorial Day Tournament.