If the New York Yankees or the Washington Huskies, or any other group of great champions had been at Monday's Kingco Championship Game, they'd have been on their feet for BOTH teams.

It was a virtually flawlessly played game, zero-zero through 8 innings, until we finally put up 4 runs in the 9th inning international tie-breaker.

Did someone mention that "defense wins championships"?  (Re-read the Juanita game headline below.)  Yes.  On a night where as visitors there simply was no margin for errors, we made none.  Beyond that, we made some stellar plays at critical times:

    Kayla made a solid running catch when Eastlake's slapping lead-off hitter got under one in the bottom of the first;

    After an Eastlake batter got on to begin their third, Cat personally took the inning away, diving to catch an attempted sacrifice bunt for the first out, then snagging a low liner and doubling the runner off first to end the inning;

    Emily made two terrific plays to her left, showing rattle-snake quickness in getting off the throw;

    Maria got her glove on a chopper over her head to deflect it, and Mak adjusted her own charge, picked up the ball and got off her own strong, quick throw to nail the runner;

    Katie nailed an Eastlake baserunner stealing second to shut down another potential threat.

But defense begins in the circle and on this night Maria was at her best, maybe her best ever, giving up only 3 hits and striking out 15 batters (almost half of them in the three extra innings).

Someone once compared an extra inning game to a "knife fight on a tightrope", where any kind of mistake can bring things to an abrupt end.  That's especially true for the vistors when the score is tied. 

And in the bottom of the 7th and 8th innings, with the score zero-zero, where a single Eastlake run was the ballgame and even a baserunner was potential catastrophe, Maria faced six batters total, retired them in order...........and struck five of them out. 

Eastlake's fine pitcher Nicole Guptil spun her own gem through 8 innings, with some help from her own defense.  Two Falcons were thrown out trying to steal, and two others were thrown out at home, once when Kayla singled and their center fielder got Madi with a must-be-perfect (and was) strike.

After 8 scoreless innings, we went to international tie-breaker, where things get even more tense.  In ITB the inning begins with a runner on second base.  "The book" dictates a bunt by the leadoff hitter in ITB, to try to move the runner over, but for the visiting team another school of thought says:  No guts, no glory. 

With speedy Katie on second and the middle of the order coming up, Coach Leander played for the big inning.  It worked.  With one out, Cat drew a walk, then Madi crushed a ground-rule double that bounced over the fence, scoring Katie.  After Maria drew another walk to load the bases, Kayla came through, sending a 2-2 pitch on a line over second base, scoring two more runs and breaking Eastlake's back.  Their valiant pitcher finally ran out of steam for the night and another run came in on two more walks.

With a 4-run lead, Maria got the first batter on a ground-out back to her, and struck out the next two batters to end the game.   She'd retired the last eleven batters she'd faced, nine by strikeout.

Whew.   Kingco Champions.

Onward.