My Team vs. My Team

"You are coming to our game aren't you?"

"Huh? What? A game? When?" I asked absent- mindedly. I was multi-task­ing- taking attendance, try­ing to settle down the class, running down the agenda of junior Honors English that day. Now I was trying to take part in a conversation. Never a good idea.

"Tuesday," one of the five softballers in my class answered.

"Uhhh, I'll have to check my schedule," I thought about the stack of essays I hadn't graded yet. My belly twinged again with time-away-from-family guilt. I spend 10 hours away from home most work days without including sticking around to watch a softball game.

Such is the life of a Waitsburg-to-Tri-Cities area commuter. But I've tried to make a point of supporting the kids I teach as well. "Is it right after school?"

"It's at four."

"I don't think I can stay that late."

"It's in Dayton."

Dayton? "You guys are playing Dayton?"

"Yeah, are you coming?"

"I'll have to hustle out of here to make it." Maybe I can take one of my kids to the game with me, I thought. Spend a little time. "I'll try."

So March 26 found me in Dayton with my daugh­ter Ruth and my Class 1A RiverView High School Panther girls' softball team taking on my alma mater Dayton Bulldogs softball team.

I'd already decided that I wouldn't write a game story of the non-leaguer. There is no teaching job quite as all-consuming of one's time like teaching English. And as Tuesdays are deadline around here, I knew I'd have had to knock out the story that evening after the game. Wasn't happening.

Still, to not take note of this serendipitous sports match-up-a game sched­uled long before I knew I'd be teaching for the Bull­dogs' midweek opponent, would have been, well, wrong.

The five Panther girls I teach are pitcher Kay­lee Lozier, third baseman Jayme Walker, shortstop Ashley Dickinson, JV/Var­sity floater Tayla Wallace, and stats keeper/manager Katie Wilhelm.

Lozier struggled in the first inning against the Dogs, allowing multiple runners to base and one run to score. After that inning, she found her groove setting down Dayton's white-clad sluggers routinely until the bottom of the sixth.

Sam Harting was just as effective off the mound for Dayton. RiverView man­aged just a single tying run off Harting, which came in the second.

Errors in the outfield in Dayton's half of the sixth doomed RiverView. Two runs scored. Dayton and Harting needed just three outs to end it.

That would be easier said than done. Two RiverView runners reached base in the final frame. They advanced to second and third. With two outs, Lozier hit what she believed was a game ty­ing smack away from right fielder Sarah Phillips. But Phillips made "an amazing" catch according to Lozier, and the game ended in favor of the Dogs.

Or at least that's what my RiverView girls told me, because my seven year old daughter got bored, and hungry, and well the daddy-guilt reared its ugly head inside me again. We left after the fourth inning. But I can assure you, the Panther girls-an above av­erage South Central Athletic Conference team-were impressed with the play of the Bulldogs, and with the beautiful green hill setting that surrounds their field.

Good game Dogs. Good game Panthers.