The start of a journey.

For me yesterday’s game was a watershed moment for the “the kids”. In every thing that happens in life comes from an action or a trigger. Yesterday it came from (to the naked eye an unlikely source) by chance because he was having a sleep over by a buddy and had to come to training with him… MO Maseko..

Leading off the third inning down 1 nil, MO drills the first pitch dead center way over the center fielders head that to me would have been an automatic home run and he legged out a triple. This action caused a raucous moment which “the kids” capitilised on and rode the wave with two more doubles( Talun and Jaedon) and a triple by catcher Nur Scello. All three of these hits were drives to right center. This had the supporters on the grandstand going crazy.

The real positive about this game was that we went down twice in the game and each time we fought back and took the lead. This shows the fight that these kids have. We had great pitching in really hot conditions from Jaedon and Talun. Jaedon with 3 innings 4 K’s 5 hits no walks. Talun 2 innings 1 bb and 1 k.

We had great baserunning and really good fielding whilst only making one error. “the kids” are figuring it out and the step from u10 till now is slowly diminishing. Out of my years of coaching I will admit that this process from taking tee ballers to u12 is hard. But we must all remember that it is a process that we need to understand. We cannot miss steps in the process. And we have to trust the process that we are giving to the kids.

And in saying this I believe that we have a great group of u12s coming through (and I am including some of the U10s that we have as well. The future is bright guys. Myself and Coach Jean are excited to be leading this process. But it’s not just us, we have had a great support staff.

I firstly would like to thank the amazing parents we have. You guys have been awesome. On the coaching part we have had instruction from u18 coach and catching expert Andrew Ball as well as senior player Lance Gordon. And parent help in the bench in Stanton and New masters shirt stop Alun. We appreciate it immensely.

Last point but I think it’s the most important one. I know that kids develop better when watching baseball and living it. Yesterday was a lovely example of our kids hanging around after they play and enjoying the day together. Playing in the cages, throwing bull pens, watching the games running around the stadium. Watching. Ire games. Talking to each other about their favorite senior players. They are starting to live the game. And that is where the real development happens. Not at training. But together learning fro. Each other and talking the game.

On that I say thank you to the parents again for allowing the kids to stay at the field after their game. Coach Paul and Coach jean

The U10’s played Van der Stel on Saturday in very hot conditions and won the game 37 – 22.

Both teams from the u12 boys fielded in the u10 game due to shortage of players namely Caleb Bell, Storm Doyle and Mo Maseko. Our batting was on top with the boys getting on bases.

The diamond players did their job in excellent stopping and not allowing VDS to reach bases. Rustum hit a solo homerun in the fifth frame. Storm Doyle hit two homeruns and a double, Caleb Bell enjoyed his batting as last batter hitting 4 homeruns, Mo Maseko hit two homeruns.

It was a well deserved win in the blistering heat.