Slayers Begin Tourney with a Win

The last time we saw the Slayer team in action, they had just lost to Barkley. The time before that, they had lost to VML. Even though their record was good enough to give them the 2nd seed in the Monday Division Tournament, the SHS truck was puttering into the garage. Their opponent was TopCat, a team they had beaten earlier in the year 12-7. But as time has told us with the Slayers, you never know what team is going to show up to play.

Being 2nd seed helped SHS be home team for just the second time this season, so the Slayers hit the field first. Looking at the mound, a familiar face had come home. That's right, McShit was back and started the night off. A couple of well-placed hits by TopCat and some rusty pitching by McShit put the Slayer in a 3-0 hole going into the bottom of the first.

PJer didn't think that was cool. "That's not cool," he said. So he did something about it, he smacked an inside-the-park home run to get SHS' players and fans excited. "I'm so pumped right now," exclaimed Babby. Unfortunately, the rest of the inning didn't fare as well. The remaining batters couldn't score DeShawn and Gimmie, so heading into the second inning, TopCat was up 3-1.

It was time to play defense. But once again, the Slayers found themselves in trouble -- 0 outs and the bases loaded. The next hit popped up behind second base and PJer easily scooted over for the catch and winged it in to McShit. In a bizarre base-running twist, the TopCat player on third thought they would sneak a run in -- but McShit was too fast and caught them. It was a Slayer double-play. Still with two people on base, TopCats' best hitter came up and slammed one into deep left-center. With Coacherson and DeShawn having fully scouted the player, the defense was set up in the right position. DeShawn took about 5 steps back and caught the ball for the third out.

The bottom of the second inning looked to be more of the same faultering hitting performances by SHS. Ogre popped out, 4 Beers grounded out, which left McShit up to bat. Needing something to get the Slayers going, McShit did something he's never done before. He took a walk. That put him and Tabby on base and brought PJer up to bat. PJer smacked a double and scored two runs. Then The Truth crushed a triple and DeShawn hit a double to score another run. After two full innings, SHS was up 5-3.

The third inning was pretty much a wash as both teams had close to three-up, three-down at bats. Ogre hit a triple for the Slayers, but other than that, nothing exciting happened.

The fourth inning was more of the same on defense for SHS. A hit went to Cap'n Bits, who turned and got a force out at second, then PJer rifled the ball over to 4 Beers for a double play. The Slayers were on fire defensively, which turned into four MORE runs in the bottom of the fourth. That brought the score to 9-3 heading into the fifth.

The announcement was made that there was only 12 minutes left in regulation. With only a six run lead, the Slayers were poised to either win or have another fabulous meltdown. TopCat didn't ease up, either. Working hard to keep people off base, a ball was smacked into right-center field. Coacherson saw it all happening in slow motion.

"So there I was in left-center. We had shifted over to hopefully cut off the left-handed hitter. The ball was hit. Hard. It was rocketing towards the fence. I knew it wasn't a home run, but it was a great hit. I saw The Truth and Hightower converging towards the ball, but neither of them were going to get it. 'Shit, that's probably a triple,' I said. The Truth was yelling at Hightower to 'get back, get back.' DeShawn could do nothing from left field. But then, Hightower (who was 250 squats stronger from the day prior) was running... no... galloping towards the ball. A full-speed Hightower reached out with his mitt (which looks more like a giant paw on him) and plucked the ball from the air. Just plucked it. And saved the game with that catch. What an f'ing catch."

After that, no one really knew what was going on. And before we knew it, the game was over and the Slayers were advancing to the Monday Division Championship game.

Next Game: SHS vs VML, Monday, August 18 @ 6:30.