GA State Champions - 13u

This was an unusual year for the Little League championships.  Makes sense.  Last year was completely abnormal (summer of 2020).  The spring baseball program closed down.  The summer all stars did not happen.  This meant that the regional championships did not happen... nor the state championships... and certainly not the National Little League World Series.  That was the "big" year - to contend for the 12 year old NLL.

Things were a bit better this year, however, not everything has been reinstated.  Also, it seems that as the boys get older -- get past the 12 year old NLL opportunity -- things start to break-up a bit.  We noticed that in our own club last year and this year - we had to play outside of our Little League and go "intraleague" with clubs near us in order to have enough games.  The past few seasons - at the end of the regular league play - our club was at the top.  When Hobgood hosted East Marietta last season, the championship came down to the two East Marietta teams.  When Smyrna hosted us this season, the championship came down to the East Marietta teams.  

When Mercer's team went to state during the 11u run, we had to play against 3 other leagues to earn the District 2 championship (Smyrna, Hobgood and Milford).  There was a lot of excitement building up to state.  There was fundraising and events too.  It was crazy and exciting.   (This is the throw-back picture from regional championship 2 years ago leading up to state.) 

This year, Milford didn't play -- or at least at our level.  And - Hobgood and Smyrna decided not to play in the regional playoffs.  East Marietta advanced to state automatically.    

This year, state was closer to home:  Peachtree City - south of Atlanta.  There were not as many groups that played in the state championship either.  It was a head-to-head match with the Peachtree City All Stars. 

It was not an equal match-up.  Their team was made up of players that were mixed ages -- some younger players playing "up" to the 13u.  Perhaps they did not have enough players at this level either? 

The tournament was a double-elimination.  We had 2 games scheduled for Saturday and 1 game for Sunday.  As it turned out, they did not need to play the Sunday game. 

   

 

The first game was matched pretty well to begin with.  EM was ahead, but as the game moved on, their lead grew.  

They won 16-1.  Their pitching was not strong and there were a lot of our boys who were walked.  I don't recall any significant hits that Mercer had, honestly.  (One of his teammates hit one out of the park which was exciting!)  You could tell mid-way through the pitcher from the other team was feeling defeated.  (I did feel a little bit bad, honestly.)  The game was called due to the Mercy rule (15 runs ahead).

The next game, Mercer started out pitching.  (The league sent a photographer down to take some team photos.  She arrived at the 2nd game, so we have LOTS of pictures of him pitching!)   

The first set are mine.  The really good pictures below are hers!

Todd said that Mercer's team played the best that they have played together.  Their defense was good - no errors or mistakes.  They had really good fundamentals.  The head coach of the team said the same.  (I talked with the head coach after the game and he said the other coach "looked them up" (You can see who was on the All-Star rosters for the last several years.)  The other team's coach told our coach that he noticed that the team had been kept together.... and that it showed... that played together so well.  (Interesting!)

The majority of the guys did play together. 
There have been a few players move in and out over the years, but the core group has been together.  (well, except for one - Blake - #12)  

The league honored Blake in two ways:  the #12 patch on the kids' jersey's and coaches shirts... and they had his own All-Star jersey made to present to Blake's family.  <3 

A funny thing about Mercer pitching:  his hat keeps falling off!  That hair... we've got to cut that hair! 

Mercer pitched 3 innings.  They brought in another pitcher in the 4th.  No runs were given up.  They called the Mercy rule again at the end of the 4th.  (Which - someone told me - is 4 innings or 15 runs.)  East Marietta won the 2nd game 18-0!   I did feel a bit bad for the other team.  You can tell they felt defeated.  You could see it in their body language.  :( 

There was a (mini) presentation by that league's commissioner.  She gave the boys on both teams "State Playoff" pins and presented the coach with a banner for our club to display. 

 (Admittedly, the boys were a little upset that there weren't trophies.  They got trophies at regionals two years prior before going to state... but the host league isn't required to provide trophies (usually they do, but not a requirement.)   Our coach talked to the league after the tournament -- state is a BIG deal after all!  He emailed out that our league would provide trophies for the boys. 

The photographer who came down took some team photos, then that was it.   It was a little bit of let down, honestly.  Once the trophies come in, there will be a proper celebration, though!

One cool thing about having a tournament in Peachtree City:  airplanes.  

(It's close to the Atlanta airport...but also there was a group of bi-planes flying over -- and the Commissioner, when I said something about them -- said there's a club that pilots are in / practice these formations.   They circled around... they formed diamond shaped patterns... and these three lines as shown in this photo.  I don't think it was too distracting to the players.??

We did not need the 2nd day (Sunday), but we had the room booked overnight and made a mini vacay out of it.  Several of the families stayed the night in the same hotel.  They hung out at the pool together for awhile. 

Later, three of the families (plus extended family for one of the groups went to Senoia Georgia which is about 10 minutes away from the baseball field where we were playing.  

(these are not my photos.... they're from the internet)

It is such a cute historic downtown... definitely had a lot of character.  It was actually a little up-scale... probably because there's a lot of tv/movie money there.  The most famous show filmed there is The Walking Dead (TWD) -- the show about zombies.   The director and one of the actors opened a restaurant in town. 

The director was actually having dinner there when we were.  (One of the baseball moms was going crazy b/c he was there - she's a big fan.) 

I think the kids had fun going out to dinner together, having breakfast in the restaurant at the hotel the next morning and hanging out in the hotel gym together... having fun outside of baseball.

It's a little sad knowing that this is probably the last time that these guys will (mostly) play together.  No one is really talking about it (there are little rumors here and there / one or two people have said some things about it one-on-one), but it sounds like about half of the team will try out for different travel teams / baseball clubs.  

Mercer may be the only one in our school district.  He can play on the JV high school team in 8th grade... the rest are in the neighboring school district and will have to wait 'til they're in 9th grade.  

I'm glad we made a little trip out of it!

After 1 1/2 years, we finally visited some of our family...

We went out of town this week to visit family that we haven't seen in 1 1/2 years due to the pandemic.  (My mom came down to help right after I dislocated my shoulder... so we did get to just see her a couple of weeks ago AND we got to see her again in North Carolina this week.)    Isabella got into mom's old "red hat" stuff -- like dress-up clothes.

We played Mexican train with my mom.  We also visited my Aunt Becky for a quick visit in NC.  The dogs are getting a bit older, but Isabella still loved on them even though they didn't want to play much!  It was nice catching up.  

We drove to New Jersey to visit Todd's mom.  We also have not been to the condo that she moved into several years ago, so she kept wanting us to visit.  

There was a heat wave while we were there, so we played mini-golf inside an indoor venue (monster golf).  Cool photos because of the neon paint everywhere.      

It was so hot that the power went out (maybe too many people using air conditioning?)  We played a bunch of rounds of Mexican Train with her too.  

Rose Marie doesn't live in Mountain Lakes anymore, but she's not too far away.  Todd took Mercer to practice baseball over at his old high school field.  (kind of cool that M got to pitch and hit where Todd used to play!)

I asked him to drop me off so I could walk around town and look at the houses.  (Um - yes - during a heat wave.  Ugh!)  It was hot, but I absolutely love the historic Hapgood homes there and was glad to get to pay a visit.  

(Rose Marie and Isabella were at the house playing Mexican Train the whole time!)

We went to see Todd's brother Bobby so we could catch up with him, see his house + see his son, Sam.  

(Todd is working on some drawings for a kitchen addition and actually did a little work while we were there).  Bobby's house is on a lake.  Todd and Sam took the kids (via canoe) over to the dock for swimming and diving.  Rose Marie and I were cooking. Bobby went back-and-forth between swimming and cooking.    

Unfortunately, we didn't get photos of Todd's brother, but, we got photos of Isabella and cousin Sam. 

Of course she loved the worm, but she was smitten with an inch worm that we found (who eats cake!

We left it in the capable hands of Bobby who promised to take care of "Webby."  ha.  

These pictures sort of remind of the bug in the eye... that thing is awfully close to her eyeball!  

The next day, we drove down to Tonia's.  Todd and the kids went mid-morning.  I left in the afternoon with Rose Marie.  After dinner, we all played Mexican Train there 'til past midnight! 

(even Isabella!)

The kids really li

Here are a couple of funny photos of Mercer with his beard-hat.  He loves this thing.  (He got it for Christmas a couple of years before up at Tonia's... so it's made an appearance there before.  Todd said, though that he was confusing the baby next to Ryan with that beard on!)

The day after that, we went to Gandy's beach to check out the house that Rory, Ryan and Zach have been working on for several years.  The water was pretty high while we were there, so there was no "beach."

Also - there were no stairs.  They had been wiped out by a recent storm (the guys were rebuilding it while we were there).  Apparently this happens every now and then?  At least they have the tools and equipment to rebuild!

Jim drove up from DC and met us in South NJ to pay a quick visit as well.

Isabella did pretty well with Ryan & Claudia's baby.  

It took a day for her to warm up, but she played a little bit and held the baby some.  She did get jealous if I paid attention to the baby, however.  

Claudia and I tried to get Mercer to hold the baby.  He tried, but was nervous and didn't do it.

Their house on Gandy's beach is bordered by a little gap on either side of them (one parcel divides them and the slew of houses on either side).... the bay on the front and a marsh on the back.  (The houses that are between their house and the marsh are abandoned.  After the big storm that hit a number of years, no one every renovating those.)

I love the marsh!  

There are lots and lots of great "greenish-yellow" photos here.

Isabella and Mercer really really loved cousin Meaghan's dog - Gunter.  That poor dog was tired after our kids left him!!  Isabella also got to spend a little bit of time with Yahtzee - Meaghan's horse, but no rides this time.

We left the next day.  Everything was too quick.  So much driving and so little time for visits!

We extended our stay a little bit (by about 1/2 a day with the pet-sitter) so that we could stay in North Carolina the full day on the 4th of July.

Todd and Mercer went to a ball-field so they could pitch / hit the ball.

Mom, Isabella and I went to the NC Zoo.  The main goal:  to visit the butterfly house!

Here are a BUNCH of photos from that visit.

they had trays of cantaloupe out - which the butterflies flocked to!   These BIG blue morphos are really really beautiful.  They're blue only comes out when they open their wings, however.  They're brown with eye spots when the wings are closed.

Isabella was "scolded" several times about not trying to hold the butterflies... she would go up to the butterfly and put her finger under it's front legs.... which is the proper way to hold a butterfly.  (There were toddlers who were in there who were literally grabbing the butterflies.  She was definitely NOT hurting them like they were.)

So, this super active girl.... because of her love of butterflies... would sit still for 5 - 10 minutes in one spot and hope that one landed on her!

The zoo charges $3 to go into the butterfly house.  We went 2 years ago with mom and Mercer waiting outside.  I felt bad for them for waiting.  We were in there 20-30 minutes ago when we went 2 years ago.  This visit... at least an hour!  We certainly got our money's worth!!  :) 

We were able to drag her away from the butterfly house and eventually go to the kid's carousel that she also wanted to ride.  

Then we headed to another exhibit (the seals).  But - there was a playground across the way that she wanted to go to while we waited for the seal training to begin.  

Problem is... she didn't want to leave the green tree frog to go watch the seal training once it finally started!  (of course)

She played with that thing for at least half an hour 'til she finally put it back in a more natural pond at the back of the playground.  

They have "Zoo School" once you're in high school at the NC Zoo.  That should definitely be in her future.... and... I wonder if she could get an internship or job there when she gets older??!!  

We had one more thing planned for all 4 of us later that night:  taking in a local baseball game so we could see some fireworks on the 4th of July!

I did not know anything about the Costal Plains League - but was familiar with one team:  the Savannah Bananas.  (We tried to go see a game when we were down in Savannah for Mercer's 11u State Tournament two summers ago.)   

For this event - the Asheboro Copperheads - was hosting a team out of Virginia - the Mavericks.  We sat on their side (there was more room) but really weren't rooting for either team per se.  We just enjoyed the "wood bat" baseball game that these college athletes play during their summer breaks.  The concept for the league interesting.  (Todd says that there's a league like this in the northeast that has been around for a very long time and that scouts go to / many of the major leaguers come out of the wood bat summer leagues -- so this would benefit players to join in and play.  There are, in fact, a LOT of these summer college leagues:  http://baseballnews.com/summer-collegiate-leagues/ 

The Copperheads game was long!  Fireworks didn't start 'til close to 10 (actually, there were some fireworks going on during the actual game farther away too -- behind the scoreboard.  It was distracting the players a little bit).  

There was a big show after the game, so we definitely got to see the sky light up!  

We missed the show in Marietta - so it was nice to catch this one.  I'm sure once we left, my mom was tired - especially after the zoo and the baseball game.)  

We were glad to FINALLY be home after the many legs of the trip.  

Hip-Hop was happy to see us too!

UPDATE:  just received some photos from Claudia of her baby and our kiddos + one of much of the family in NJ.  (Enclosed below)