But what would a
blog be without them? I mean, what is
there to say about our third conference loss by a walk-off homerun? It happened yesterday in the first game at
Augustana. After that, the results of the
nightcap were pretty much a foregone conclusion.
That left father
and daughter more or less beside themselves; Clare would not get to end her
career in the postseason. Instead, we
talked, about what she could still accomplish and why Elmhurst always seems to
fall short.
Clare put it
like this. “All the good teams have
pitchers they can bring in as soon as we start hitting, and they can keep doing
it until they find someone to shut us down.”
She’s right. Illinois Wesleyan
has five pitchers, Augustana six and Carthage an unbelievable eight. We carry two starters along with an emergency
pitcher. “And if they can hit our
starter, they get to keep on hitting.”
Augustana has
incredible athletic facilities for a school of 2500 students. Either Ken Anderson put the school on the map
when he quarterbacked the Bengals to the Super Bowl in 1982, or Augustana
already had a field and support facilities to die for. Either way, Augustana softball in particular
benefits from what I call the paradox of good fortune: The more the team wins (four CCIW championships and five NCAA appearances in the past ten years), the more good players
want to go there, even if it lessens the chance of their starting.
They were
interested in Clare, but she picked Elmhurst for the simple fact they badly
needed a power hitter. The good news is
she started all four years; the bad news is we went to the postseason only once
in that span of time. She also met the
person who looks likely to become my son-in-law.
Right now, Clare is
planning on going to graduate school in sports administration, then it’s on to
a job where she can apply what she’s learned on and off the field. If they’re smart, Elmhurst will hire her to help
bring the paradox home.
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