251 Game: @ Porterville HS 1 (1/2)
It was a one-sided beat down. Marie and her team didn't even give Porterville a chance for a comeback. Just after the fourth inning, her team led 9-0. She only gave up two walks and one hit.
We weren't able to watch any more than that though. Coach called us down from the bleachers and declared we should start heading to the baseball field for warmups. Even he thought that the softball team would be able to get the mercy. We marched to the field in two perfect lines, bags on our back. As we reached the field and headed to the visitors dugout, we could already see Porterville's baseball team doing infield and batting practice. Looks like they didn't have a machine for batting practice.
We put our bags down, changed our shoes for cleats, and then started our own warmup with Zeke leading us once again. This would be his first game back since his back bruise. As we jogged out with our gloves and hats on, there were familiar shouts of ”Go boys!” and ”Work hard out there!” With a peek, I could see Mr. and Mrs. Atkins finding seats in the bleachers, waving hi at us.
The boys all waved before jogging for the line. Even Zeke. I raised my hand to chest level then quickly put it down just in case I wasn't supposed to wave. But I wanted to. It's nice to think that they're here for me to.
Warming up was the same as usual. Coach picked Dave as the starter and sent him and Kelvin to the bullpen immediately to get in sync. Coach was smart to have us start before the girls game ended because the umps showed up during batting practice for us and started beginning of game formalities like collecting the lineup from each team.
After bp, we settled in the dugout, all eyes on coach as he announced the lineup to us:
1 SS Noah
2 2B Jake
3 LF Mahki
4 CF Zeke
5 3B Jason
6 1B Julian
7 P Dave
8 RF Tony
9 C Kelvin
As the visiting team, we got to bat first so the top of our lineup started to put on our helmets and grab our bats. Porterville High School had their announcer start the introduction for the field players as they got into position. Noah, who bats before me, stood a few feet away from the circle to take some practice swings.
”Psst. Hey. You.” A females voice called. I turned towards the bleachers and came face to face with Marie's little sister, Kaylee. She was holding a folded piece of paper, trying to slide it through the fencing. ”These are the stats from our game. Come take them.”