Information from Renee Cabra--
It was a long, successful weekend for the Phantom 12B team lead by Pete Schlag and Shannon Giusti. We started our journey against the San Carlos Force at 10:00 Saturday morning. After the first inning, we lead 2-1. In the second inning, Phantom ran away with it, scoring 8 more runs and holding the Force to no score. In the third and fourth innings, Phantom continued to score.
All the girls had hits in this game lead by the awesome pitching of Rachel Pettey. Kaitlyn Jones, Abby Curlett and Michaela Cabral, all contributed with a double and a single. The final score was 16-2 Phantom! In the second game, we faced the Foster City Flash.
This game proved to be a battle to the end. We scored 4 runs and held the Flash to 1 run during the first 6 innings with the strong pitching of Libby Schlag. In the top of the7th inning, Flash came out of their shell and scored 3 runs to tie the game. With the Phantom parents cheering behind the leadership of head cheerleader, Ron Jones, the Mighty Phantom battled back in the bottom of the 7th. Hope Alley started off with a single followed by Rachel Pettey with another single. Ellen Ebbers finished the Flash off by hitting a bomb into center field to score the tie breaking run to win the game!
The final score was 5-4 Phantom. Sunday morning, we returned to finish off the pool play with a game at 11:00 against the San Mateo Slammers. Once again, Rachel Pettey pitched a strong game supported by doubles from Brooke Promes, Malia Konig and Michaela Cabral. Strong defense was also key during this game.
Both Aliya Lubrin, with an amazing catch at shortstop and Brooke Promes with an awesome throw down to third helped to shut down the Slammers and give the Phantom a 3-1 win!
This gave us a 2:00 spot to begin our Bracket/Championship play. We faced the Los Gatos Magic for our first game. In the first inning, both teams came out with hot bats!
Rachel Pettey had big triple to score three runs and end the first with a 5-4 lead. Phantom continued to swing hot bats scoring in every inning. Both Jessica Shockley and Lauren Hermes had 2 singles and steals to help put us on top. Kaitlyn Jones pitched the first three innings followed by Rachel Pettey closing it out to a 13-5 win for Phantom.
On Monday, we all had an early wake up time to get the fields by 8:00. That didn't slow us down though; we came to battle! Almaden Lightning was our opponent and boy were they tall and strong looking girls! Libby Schlag pitched the first inning and we shut down Lightning 1-2-3!
Singles from both Hope Alley and Lauren Hermes put us on top with a 1-0 lead. Lightning woke up in the second inning and scored 3 runs, but the Mighty Phantom came back and scored 4 more with the help of key bunting and stealing from Abby Curlett and Libby Schlag. Doubles from Lauren Hermes and Hope Alley also were key.
The score was now 5-3 Phantom at the end of the 3rd inning. Rachel Pettey came to pitch and finish off the Lightning with a 5-4 Phantom win. We were on our way to the Championship Game at 2:00 vs. the Foster City Flash. Rachel Pettey was back to pitch and that she did, shutting down the Flash in the first inning. We came out strong, bats alive with 3 singles and 2 doubles leaving us with a 3-0 lead. Flash fought back in the top of the second, scoring 5 runs, but Phantom battled stronger and scored 4 more runs including a 2 RBI double from Michaela Cabral and a 2 RBI single from Malia Konig.
We were now in the 3rd inning with a 7-5 lead. Flash came out and scored 5 more runs! Now with a 10-7 lead, the Flash got 2 outs on us right away in the 3rd. The two-out rally began…singles and doubles from Rachel Pettey, Hope Alley, Michaela Cabral, Lauren Hermes, Brooke Promes, and Malia Konig, gave us 5 more runs and a 12-10 lead. Wow, the bats were on fire! In the 4th and 5th innings, both teams decided to take a break and there was no score, just great defense. But then again, in the 6th inning, the bats came alive again. Rachel Pettey had bases loaded and struck out the batter, holding the Flash to only one run that inning. Libby Schlag hit a double followed by a double from Kaitlyn Jones to add one more run to our score giving us a 13-11 Phantom lead.
In the top of the 7th, our defense broke down and allowed 6 runs. The Mighty Phantom tried to come back in the bottom of the 7th, but we were unable to pull it off. What a game! The final was 13-17 with the Foster City Flash taking the win.
For our first tournament, we did a fantastic job and our girls, coaches and parents are proud. We took home the 2nd Place trophy with smiles on our faces!
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