Things were interesting today. The tournament had been behind (some times up to 2 hours behind) all weekend, the posted game times allowed no time between games starting with the first game Saturday AM - despite doing 1 hour 10 min no new inning and needing to have a winner. The acting TD, the granddaughter of the NSA rep in Indiana was handed a bushel full of lemons and she had been trying to make lemonade all weekend.
The Doom vs Indy Gold game kicked off two hours late on Sunday - 2:50 (12:50 game). In the middle of the game to determine who would go on to play the Riptides the acting TD tells everyone that the Dome had only been rented out until 6 pm and that in order to be done by 6:00 and still get the LB Final and the Finals in, the LB Finals (Doom/Team Indy vs Riptides) would be 1 hour drop dead, revert back, coin flip (if needed). Doom end up beating Team Indy 4-1, face off against Riptides.
Fantastic game played by both teams (Doom v Riptides) - no score through 5 innings, 10 minutes left to start the 6th. Riptides score two in top of 6th but take too myuch time trying to figure out how to end their half of the inning (remember - revert back to 0-0 if buzzer goes off before Doom (home team) ends their at bat as home team). Finally Riptides get out of their half of inning with 4 minutes left as Doom comes to bat, first two batters get out, next batter walks on full count, buzzer goes off. So now the score reverts back to 0-0 and goes to coin flip. Doom wins the coin flip - to go to championship.
Obviously Riptides didn't feel very good about it, they played well enough to win. The Doom didn't feel very good about it either but the rules were explained to everyone prior to start of game. And, although this was for two berths to NSA WS, neither Riptides, nor Doom, nor Lasers Black were planning on taking advantage of the berths. The coin flip simply determined who played us (Lasers Black) in one more game.
Championship game was no new inning after 60 min, Lasers Black over Doom 2-0, game finished at 5:50. Doom played a tough game as usual. We are always guaranteed to get each others best - when we play.
Facility was great, umpiring was good, but tournament was not planned well at all. The acting TD had nothing to do with how it was planned, she just tried to make the best of the bad hand she was dealt.
