Tournament outcome from Rick:

It is sad to say that we were eliminated from the tournament last night in a game that could have easily been a win for us if we could have limited our mistakes. Last night we seemed to be tired and just couldn't make the defensive plays that we needed in order to stay in it at the end. Cooper pitched a good game, but except for the third and fourth innings, we had multiple errors in each inning that were too hard to overcome. The team we lost to (New Tampa #1) was from our own park and was easily the favored team to win, but we didn't make it easy for them. In the end though, they are our friends, and we wish them all the best as they try to beat Land O'Lakes tonight and hopefully tomorrow for the District 25 championship.

A quick recap (again from memory):
1.
We played as the visiting team and didn't score in the top of the first.
NT#1 scored 4 runs in the bottom of the first. We had two errors in the infield.
2.
We scored 6 runs in the top of the 2nd inning. Cooper had a hard-hit seeing eye single for an RBI that just glanced off the diving shortstop's glove.
NT#1 scored 4 more runs in the bottom of the 2nd. Again, two or three more errors on our part.
3.
We did not score in the top of the 3rd inning.
In the bottom of the 3rd and facing the 2,3,4,&5 hitters in the lineup, Cooper 's first pitch was lined to our 3rd baseman for a quick out. The next batter lined Cooper's second pitch of the inning to our first baseman for the 2nd out. The third batter fouled off a couple of pitches, and down 0-2 sat on Cooper's change-up for a nice single to Right. The 4th batter (who already had two homeruns in the tournament) popped up the first pitch to our 2nd baseman.....Inning over in six pitches. We're down 8-6 at this point.
4.
We scored one more run in the top of the 4th inning. Score now 8-7, but we're still behind.
The manager felt like a change of pace may throw off the opposing team, so Cooper was replaced to begin the 4th inning. NT#1 did not score in the bottom of the 4th inning. We're still trailing 7-8 after 4 innings.
5.
We had a couple of runners in scoring postion in the 5th inning, but had one player thrown out at the plate and wound up with no additional runs in the 5th.
In the bottom of the 5th, the wheels fell off the proverbial wagon. To summarize, the other team was loving our pitcher's fastball and were hitting it hard. We committed 5 errors and NT#1 took advantage of every one of them. By the time we got the 3rd out of the inning, we were down 15-7 and looking very deflated as we walked off the field.
6.
We went quickly and quietly in the top of the 6th - 3 up, 3 down and thus ended our tournament and Little League (Spring) season for 2007.

It didn't take but about 10 minutes for one of the kids to realize that "Hey, we get our lives back." After a few tears and a quick medal ceremony (we did finish 3rd out of 9 very respectable teams), we packed our gear for a much needed Summer break. I hope that I haven't annoyed you with my emails, but most of you have been an encouragement to Cooper's (and mine as well) baseball fascination and training, and others of you are good friends that I know love a good baseball story....and then there are of course the relatives that can't get enough info about us. :-)