Another month has gone by and even though the rain has
picked up a bit, we haven’t had any problems getting in a lot of
baseball. During the first Saturday of the month the eldest group again had the
opportunity to showcase their skills. The teams of Nuevo Amanacer and Santa
Matilde had a double header at the New Song Field. In the first game Santa
Matilde did not have much of a chance because the pitcher for Nuevo Amanacer
brought the magic. He pitched a no hitter while also tallying 10 strikeouts. It
was an unbelievable performance as Nuevo Amanacer took the first game 7-0.
Santa Matilde looked to have bounced back in the second game being only down
one run after the 3rd, but that is when it started to unravel as the
errors and walks began to tally. Nuevo Amanacer captured the second game to win
12-5. As for the other two other teams, Candelaria and Fe y Esperanza, they squared
off in the community of Fe y Esperanza. Candelaria took the first game handedly
and unfortunately a second game was not played due to an incident that happened
after the first game. The communities that we are working in are very poor
communities where education levels are not very high. With that we tend to see
traits of petty theft, lack of respect and in general bad attitudes amongst the
kids and sometimes the parents we are working with. After the game there was a
dispute of a missing glove, which then escalated into a big scene. It was
decided to not play the second game and to have everybody just go home. Fe y
Esperanza (faith and hope) is the newest church plant for New Song Mission. In
that there is not quite yet a foundation of Christian men or women who are
available to help as coaches, chaplains, etc. Due to these reasons among
others, it was decided by the Pastor of that community to suspend his teams
from playing in the league in January giving him time to raise up people who
will be able to provide the leadership and guidance needed. It was very
disappointing because the Pastor has been a big proponent for the sports
ministry up until this point and sees the huge potential that it has to impact
his community. This lack of Christian leadership especially among men has been
one of the biggest obstacles we have had to overcome, but in that it is also
one of our biggest goals and focuses to impact the hearts of adult men and
women through sports. We ask that you keep this in your prayers and that God
will give us wisdom and guidance and that hearts will be softened amongst the
people.
As for the second weekend there were only two teams that
participated in the 9-10 age group and that was Candelaria and Santa Matilde. In
the first game, Candelaria jumped on the opposition early thanks to patience at
the plate and preferring to be walked instead of chasing bad pitches. Candelaria
led 3-0 after the first. Santa Matilde could not get anything going in the
second either as they were not able to find a way to score, but Candelaria
again found themselves making noise on offense. The floodgates began to open up
when Candelaria had the bases loaded with only one out and their clean up
hitter, a 10 year old girl, up to bat. Little Yelly did not back down from the
situation and hit a bases clearing double. From that moment Candelaria did not
look back and ended up winning 13-0 after the game was called after the third. The
second game of the double header began like the first game ended, with
Candelaria lighting up the scoreboard. Candelaria posted a ridiculous 9 runs in
the top of the first inning, but Santa Matilde answered in the bottom half of
the first. Having already had their ace pitch two innings in the first game the
coach of Candelaria decided to give the ball to another pitcher to see how well
he could manage. He did not manage well as the pitcher surrendered 5 runs. The score
stayed 9-5 as the teams went to the bottom half of the second. The coach let
his pitcher start the second hoping to see an improvement. Unfortunately, Santa
Matilde continued their hitting and knocked in 2 more runs. The coach decided
to call on his ace to get his team out of the jam. The Candelarian stud stood
tall and got his team out of the second inning without giving up anymore runs
as the teams stood deadlocked at 9-7 heading into the third. The teams battled
back and forth until the sixth and final inning. The score was 11-9 and it was
anybody’s game. Candelarian came up to bat for their final turn and they made
the most out of it. They were able to bring in 4 runs to push their lead to
15-9. Candelaria marched their closer out to the mound in the bottom of the
sixth and he struck out two out of the four batters he faced to give Candelaria
the win and the sweep for the day.
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| What an action shot! |
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| Girl Power! |
The final weekend of the month included the little ones from
the three communities of Candelaria, Santa Matilde, and Nuevo Amanacer. The
first game was between Candelaria and Nuevo Amanacer. This particular
Candelarian team has been one of the best coached teams so far and it shows.
They do not make many errors, which is HUGE for little ones that are in this
age group. They also can smash the ball of the tee. Up next was Nuevo Amanacer
and Santa Matilde. The last time these two teams met, Santa Matilde took over a
close game and dominated the last two innings so Nuevo Amanacer was looking for
a win. One could tell that Nuevo Amanacer has improved over the past month as
they did get the win that they were looking for. It was a close game throughout
but the improvements in the players on Nuevo Amancer were good enough to propel
them to victory. For the third and final game Santa Matilde was to take on
Candelaria. The best game amongst all the teams in the previous month of August
was the meeting between these two. Candelaria made an amazing comeback in the
top half of the last inning only to see Santa Matilde win on a walk-off single
in the bottom half. With memories of their gut wrenching loss still on their
minds, Candelaria played some inspired tee ball. They were sharp fundamentally
in the field and as always they brought their big boy bats. Candelaria easily
took care of Santa Matilde as they finished undefeated for the weekend. After
going undefeated in the first weekend they played, the youngsters of Santa
Matilde headed back home winless knowing that they would have to improve in
practice.
