In a slightly chilly opening day, the Cards took the field against the Royals. They finished their team pictures nicely and as team warmups were wrapping up we had a brief moment for a preseason interviewwith Coach Grossman. When asked about the upcoming season he said, “I’m very excited about our team. We have five kids from an original T-ball team in Fall 2008 in Matt, Michael, Mitchell, ,Olivia, and Isaac and we have those kids as well as Amanda back from last year. I’m very excited about our new additions and we’ve had great help from our parents. It’ll probably take a couple of weeks for everything to come together, but we should have a fine season. I’m looking forward to it.”
In the first Matt was on the mound and he made a nice out on a throw to Nick at first. Unfortunately, a few misplays and some good hitting by the Royals resulted in four quick runs. In the bottom of the first, the Royals shut down the Cardinals. A former player of Coach Grossman’s from last year, named Nicholas, made a great play on a ground ball to short and he flipped it to second for an out.
In the second, Nick made a nice throw to Michael for an out at first and a nice throw to Matt at home for out two. Unfortunately the Dodgers scored four more runs. In the bottom of the second everyone had some great hits and the Cards picked up four runs of their own. [Editors Note: The reporter didn’t do such a great job taking notes at this game. Obviously that will improve as the season progresses.]
In the third, the Cards made some great plays with DJ on the mound as he threw to Matt for one out at first and twice to Nick at home for two more outs. In the bottom of the third, the Cards again scored four runs.
In the top of the fourth, Michael fired one to Isaac and he caught it for out one. With a runner on the first the next batter grounded back to the mound. Michael wheeled and fired to Matt at second who then fired to Isaac at first and the Cards almost had a 1-4-3 double play. The next batter hit a grounder back to the mound where Michael wheeled and fired to Matt for out three. Bottom of the fourth and the Cards again scored four runs. The game ended due to time constraints.
Coach Grossman said, “We had a rough start, but we really settled down defensively. We clearly need to work on base running as we haven’t practiced that at all but overall I liked the throwing and catching that I saw and I think we’ll do much better next week. The rain and Spring break certainly disrupted our practices. A good week of practice and we’ll be fine. I thought William hit the ball well and Merrit looked good in the field. Logan had a lot of balls hit to him and he improved with each one. Amanda made some great plays in the field, she showed some real range and it was exciting to see how well she played. We will absolutely be ready for next week. “
