When it was confirmed that Nico made the All Star team, we really didn't know what all we were getting into, but what a ride it ended up to be! Five tournaments, including a trip to the World Series in South Louisiana, gave this baseball loving boy one heck of a summer!
I wanted to come up with a fun little way to tell him the news, so I had a local bakery write it on a cookie. We also bought him a hitting net (which we wanted to get at some point anyways) so he had a better place to work on his hitting. We were starting to lose all of the balls over the fence in our backyard.
Needless to say, Nico was pumped to hear the news and wanted the net up right away!
Without the time to have any practices due to the regular season still being in play, the boys played in their first tournament in Oak Hill over Memorial Day Weekend. They went 2-1, and the tourney was rained out on Sunday night. Papa and Grandma came into town to catch all three games, and half of the team hung out after their first game on Friday night, so that all made for a nice first weekend of baseball!
Nico split time between the infield and outfield this weekend, and he made some outs in each position to help his team win. He doubled a runner off first after catching a line drive right back at him while he was playing pitcher, and he really impressed us with a shoe string catch in right field. I was so proud of him, since we had been working extra hard on catching pop ups lately! He ended up catching another few out in the outfield this summer, which is rare for this age!
He hit his usual line drives up the middle, but we learned something this weekend that benefitted him the remainder of the summer and allowed him to really succeed. (Disclaimer: I realize that he is 5, and what I am about to say sounds absolutely ridiculous!) Turns out, opponents were positioning their infielders according to batters' previous at bats, so against Nico, the shortstops would play directly behind 2nd base, since he consistently drove it up the middle. After they ended up catching a few of his line drives out to CF, it became obvious that if we wanted to give our guy a fighting chance, we would need to teach him to use the entire field now.
It wasn't but a few days later that David helped Nico understand the importance of looking at the defense and then deciding how to position his feet to hit it in the 5-6 hole vs over 3rd base vs. up the middle. Can you believe this is 5-6 year old tball? (Insert laughing emoji...)
Nico often asked if we could have family practices, too, so he could see where his hits were going on a real field. We have so much fun with him! I love that he loves this game as much as we do (or maybe even more).
Tournament #2 was just around the corner, the first weekend in June, and was held in North Austin. Our guys finished 3rd after losing a pair of games to our newfound rival, the Hays Wrecking Balls. This became a team that was easy to dislike, as they weren't the most sportsmanship oriented bunch. Nico played great, and he even made an out on a bang bang tag play at the plate! (He seems to keep doing things that we aren't accustomed to seeing in tball!)
A rite of passage right here... our first 8 AM game as parents. We knew it would happen eventually.
Always getting extra work in with daddy.
We continue to use one word to describe this sweet girl- Trooper!! She tags right along and rarely throws a fuss. As long as she has her portable fan and snacks, she is good!
We knew that we were signed up for 3 tournaments at a minimum, and then you could continue advancing if you placed in the top two going forward each weekend.
Well, our Tigers found a way to win tournament #3!
We came from behind to beat those pesky Wrecking Balls in the Championship game. In dramatic fashion, Nico blasted a bases clearing, game ending shot to the outfield! So fun to watch. Our guy deserved every second of that moment. The coaches even carried him off the field.
From that point on, we advanced to Sectionals and played no one other than that darn team again. We had their number, beat them at their own complex, and were named Sectional Champions.
Nico claimed that he was too tired to smile here.
We were on to tournament #4, Regionals, and the top 2 teams would advance to the South Zone World Series in Lafayette, Louisiana. It was only days before that we knew such a thing existed?!! This Regional tournament was held in Hays and lasted a full week.
Nico had plenty of fans this week, as my parents were in town for Natalie's birthday week, plus the whole birthday party gang made a trip out that Saturday too.
Cutest little catcher I've ever seen.
Aaaaand, they won it all again. Regional Champions. Craziness.
The parents had mixed emotions on the idea of road trippin' to South Louisiana for tball, but hey, this was all about the boys and would be an experience that they will always remember!
These guys were sooo pumped. They actually got rings. And a metal sign hung at our complex.
And just like that, we were off to Louisiana a few weeks later!
