Crested Butte Lobar runner up at Fruita softball tournament

Blurry consummation and little balls

Well, sort of, but we weren’t going to argue. Ten women from Crested Butte and one from Aspen headed out to Grand Junction for a fall softball tournament with one goal in mind: just to have some fun, and that we did. We just happened to come home with a trophy, too. At first we thought we needed to give it back because we ended the weekend with a 1-3 record but they insisted. Okay, and then we looked a bit closer and we actually took second place out of the lower division, which means we took fourth place and there were only five teams, but hey, we got a trophy.
Game one was a bit of a blur and no one could really swing the bat. But we managed to pull out some great defensive plays. In the fourth inning the ladies of Grand Junction hit a long ball to left center that just sailed over Andrea Schumacher’s glove. Kelly McGuire was backing up the play but bobbled the ball a bit trying to pick it up (they play with these little balls in the women’s league—lame). The throw came into the cutoff and relayed to third to try and make the tag. The ball got through third and the runner headed home, diving in hard but was tagged out by the catcher, Leah. Like I said, at least we had fun, but we lost that game 12-6.
The bats started to come around in the second game, the only game that we won. We started out strong and then a few miscues in pitching had the girls from Delta a few runs ahead. Lauren Alkire turned it all around and started throwing some strikes and even managed a few strikeouts along the way. After falling behind in the third inning we battled hard back and got a great rally going. A base hit by Kat, Heather Duryea and McGuire loaded the bases. Then Molly Keating stepped up and struck one down the right field line for an inside the park grand slam. We got ahead and held them off for our only win of the day.
The next two games get a bit blurry now that it is getting to be 6 p.m. and we have been consuming since 10 a.m. But we turned a few great double plays at second by Fischer and some great catches in the outfield. The last game of the night was highlighted by an easy inside the park home run by our guest player from Aspen, Farrah Keanaaina. You might recognize that name because she was the 2012 winner of the home run derby here in Crested Butte.
Thank you to the Lobar for sponsoring us for the weekend and to all the wonderful women who played: Lauren Alkire, Heather Duryea, Amber Finley, Leah Fisher, Farrah Keanaaina, Molly Keating, Kathryn Long, Kelly McGuire, Andrea Schumacher, Dalynn Trujillo and Peace Wheeler.