For the first time since 2002, First Christian Church is the softball divisional tournament champion! We had an incredible run through the tournament, and even through the last few games of the season. After winning our first two games in the tournament I was wondering if we were really that good or if we were just punching above our weight. We came into last Tuesday heading into the winners bracket championship while the losers bracket was down to the final four, so it was a situation where we could have played 2 or 3 games depending on if we won or lost. The first game was against Leesburg who had pretty well stomped us twice during the season and was the odds-on favorite to win it all. Well, we were ahead 1-0 after 1 inning, 2-0 after 2 innings, 3-0 after 3 innings…and start to think maybe we can beat them. They tied it fairly late in the game but we came right back with a few more, and held them in check the rest of the way and won 7-5. Then we had to wait for them to play again for the losers bracket championship against the team that they had beaten the week before. We were expecting to have to play Leesburg again but North Webster beat them and ended them. Now North Webster had been in the final four of the losers bracket, so they had to win at 6, then win at 7, then win at 8, then play us at 9. So they were in their fourth consecutive game, and maybe a bit tired, but we capitalized on every opportunity and made some great plays including tagging runners out at home at times, and they were hitting the ball a long way but not quite far enough and our outfield was running them down, and we actually shut them out 10-0, invoking the mercy rule after 5 innings. I even got to record the last out of the game at second base. An amazing victory and an amazing late season run! By the end we really were feeling like we could beat anybody in this league. Funny story…Beth was in line at the concession stand midway through the championship game when one of the league directors came by to tell the worker that she had to go home to make more championship plaques, because “one of the teams that’s not supposed to win keeps winning.”…..Saturday was a 5k race at Tippy Creek Winery, the first I’ve run in almost a couple years. My time was not great (27:42) but I’m pretty sure the course was long because the tracker app said my 5k time was 26:16. Anyway, the course was not that interesting (run down the road and back) even though it looks like the winery would be a really fun place to hang out on a weekend. They had live music and a food truck, and runners got a free wine slushy which was pretty good, actually……I ran the 5k with a stuffy nose that had started midweek and was getting progressively worse, even though I felt all right for the race it got worse from there. By Saturday afternoon I felt terrible and stayed home from church on Sunday. Today I wasn’t great either but since I’d been feeling sick all weekend and it was a holiday and the rest of the family wanted to do something, we went to Fort Wayne. Nat needed a few more tops so Beth took her shopping for some clothes, but Alex and Missy didn’t need anything else so we went to the stores they like (Think Geek and that other one that’s just like it). I thought about visiting Mom but decided that I probably shouldn’t go there sick.