Chili Peppers

    Chili Peppers started back in the year 2000 as a coach pitch team coached by Connie Huffman. At that time they were called the Lady Bugs. In 2001, Dale Redick became the head coach and with Chili's restarant as a sponser the team named was changed to Chili Peppers. Also, instrumental to the team and the girls development was having Rob Waters help coaching. We played coach pitch in 2001 and finished the year with 9 wins and 5 losses. In 2002 we moved up to 10U with the girls having their first taste of other girls pitching to them.   We finished that year with a 9 and 4 record. In 2003 we went 10 and 9 and got our first taste of tournaments. We played in the Best of KC tournament and lost all four games we played but took on some of the top 10U teams in three different States. We played in the league tournament and won our first trophy by finishing 2nd place, losing 3-1 in the championship game. By the year 2004 we were ready to start making our mark.
   In 2004 we were in 10U for the last year. We decided to try and play in even more tournaments this year. Our first tournament we played 4 teams that were in the A division(we were considered B). Though we competed we lost all four games we played but it made us become better and got us ready for league play. In league play we won our only seeding game and then went 6 and 4 and placed 2nd in the 10U league. In the league tournament we won 2 games and then lost in the championship game to take 2nd place. We played in a Mothers day tournament and won 2 and lost 2 to take 3rd place in that tournament. At the end of the year we went and played in two VIP tournaments. The first one we did not lose in pool play then went through the tournament part and had to take on a real good team(Comets) in the semi-finals and lost 1-2. We came back and won the 3rd place trophy. In the second VIP tournament we lost one pool play game, to the Comets, and in the tournament part we avenged our loss to the Comets by beating them in the Championship game to win it all. In the Vip tournaments we won a total of 9 games and lost 2(went 2-2 to the Comets).   For the season we had a record of 20 and 13.
   2005 brought a new game to our girls. We had to move up to 12U which had several different rule changes. We also had to get by without having Rob coaching anymore as he and Haley moved up to a team that played in lots of tournaments. Our record for the year was not good, 4 and 13, but most of the games we lost by a run and most of them coming in the last inning. We played in one tournament and went 2-2 losing both games to a team that would later place 2nd in Nationals. We lost the 2nd game to them 1-3 in a very good game. One bright spot in 2005 was we started up another team that played t-ball and were named Lil' Peppers. They did not lose any games in their league going 10-0. 

    2006 the older girls were in their 2nd year of 12U but before the season started several players decided to play somewhere else or not play softball at all.  We ended up having 3 girls stay and we picked up 8 new girls with only 1 of those with any comp. experience.  Our record was 1-4 after the first 5 games but then the girls figured out how to play at a higher level and we went 4-1 to finish the season at 5-5.  In the fall we did even better and went 6-4 and finished 2nd place in league.  The Lil' Peppers had another great season and went 11-1 in their first year of coach pitch, playing against older girls.   We  have a lot to look forward to the years ahead.

   2007 we no longer had an older team.  The girls went on to other teams and we decided to put our effort into the younger girls.   The Lil' Peppers now became the Chili Peppers and they played coach pitch in the 8U division though most of the girls are 7.  We had a great season and in league we went 6-3-1 but it was the machine pitch tournaments where the girls shined.   In our first 8U machine tournament we went to the championship game by beating the Hot Stix and then beat a team that had never lost and won the tournament.   In our next tournament we lost in the semi's and then beat the Hot Stix for a 3rd place trophy.  In the VIP finals we once again got to the championship game but this time lost a real close game to the Hot Stix 8-11 but still finished 2nd place.   In the fall we played in a machine pitch league at Blue Valley against older teams but went 7-3 and finished 2nd place in the league.  We also played in one fall tournament and they let teams play that had to move up next year so we were still playing older girls.  We got the 1 seed after pool play but in bracket play we did not play the best and then had some calls go against us including the umpire walking away before time expired because I questioned a call.   The girls regrouped and blasted the next team to receive the 3rd place trophy.   For  2007 our record was  28-13-1 mostly against older teams.  A very nice season!!