Before we could be Louisiana bound, Nico's jerseys needed to have the official PONY patches sewn on! We had to call on the help of Great Granny Phyll to do the job! We bribed her with Jack Allen's for dinner.
The tournament was spread out over three days, from Thursday to Saturday night. Our game times really weren't ideal, as we played 8 pm Thurs, and 2 and 8 pm on Friday for our total of three pool games. Not only were those late games starting at Nico's bedtime, but it really minimized our ability to go do certain fun things the first couple days! The pool games seeded you into winners vs consolation bracket, so you were guaranteed four games total for the trip.
We had a smooth 6.5 hour drive over on Wednesday. Nico stayed entertained with his movie player and brought along 3 baseball related movies. He probably watched the Sandlot 5-6x on this trip.
This trooper just smiled away and was ready for the fun!
The boys spent some time in the pool shortly after our arrival, and we were able to go to a nice seafood dinner at Fazo's with part of the team that night!
We had a nice suite that allowed for Natalie's pack in play near our bed, and Nico slept on the pull out couch on the other side of the room.
In the interest of doing something low key on Thursday, since they had an 8 pm game that night, Nico and I signed up for a swamp tour with 3 other families! David said alligators are his biggest fear, so there was no way he was going! We saw a dozen gators and various other birds on the nearly two hour cruise. It was a fun local thing to do!
Game 1 ended in a loss, but we haven't forgotten about Nico's amazing defensive play. He received a relay throw in the dirt from the 2nd baseman, caught it, and dove to tag the guy out at the plate... and then popped right up to throw a bullet right at the 3rd baseman's chest who then tagged out another runner! I love that he was so ready and alert, when it could have been easy to halfway pay attention back there. This play then propelled him to stay at catcher the remainder of the tournament instead of being a part of his usual outfield rotation as well.
Not bad for the second youngest on the team. (He is only one of two PreK kids, while the rest are an age/grade up.)
He looks so much more mature than 5 years old as he sets his own tee...
Nico continued to hit line drives into the outfield all tournament long. Definitely the most consistent of any of our hitters. That's our guy.
They picked up their 1st (and only) win on Friday.
The low point of the trip was the 3-3.5 hour lightning delay!! We were an inning into our 1st game on Friday, and the delay then pushed our 2nd game to beyond 9-9:30 pm. I didn't have the heart, nor sanity, to keep this girl out there, so we headed back to the hotel to go to bed early.
With a 1-2 record, we played in the consolation bracket and lost that game on Saturday afternoon. Based on the post game reactions from the boys, you wouldn't have even known they lost. That's how it should be at this age!
Part of our team left to go home, but we opted to stay for another night to hang out. We had paid for the hotel room anyway, and it was a fun chance for Nico to hang out with his buddies. This was a big vacation that was all about him! We found an arcade down the street, went to dinner, caught part of the Championship game that night, and got a late night swim in.
I couldn't be any happier for Nico that he got to have this experience. He got to spend such a large part of his summer playing a game he loves while making new friendships that he will likely continue to have for many years to come!
The team officially finished the season with an end of the year pool party at Cal's house. They received replicas of their team sign that is hanging at the baseball complex.
Now... looking forward to a little break from baseball for a while!! :)
