Tiffin Dragons Bringing the Fire!
This photo has a very special meaning today as I write this post. It might not seem like much and there is a good chance you have already seen it once before in my posts, but this morning I am going to tell you a story about why this photo is so important.
In case you missed it, you should definitely read this post from yesterday about the university team that my niece plays softball on. As a freshman, she isn't getting as much play time as we would like, but she doesn't seem to mind and she is learning so much that is going to be useful to her when the coach finally needs her to be a starter.
Hopefully you read the post above and to give you just a little more background, heading into the Great Midwset Athletic Conference (GMAC) softball tournament this week, the Tiffin Dragons had some must win games. They came up to my neck of the woods in Michigan and played against Northwood University where they split their double header.
If you aren't educated in the game, that just means they played two games back to back and they won one and lost one. A sweep would mean they won both games and if they got swept, they would have lost both games.
After that, they played the games against Ashland that I mentioned above which put them into the tournament at the end of the season. The fact that they split that double header with Ashland meant that they made it in as well.
Fast forward to two days ago when The Tiffin Dragons beat the #1 seed team in the tournament Ohio Dominican which again I wrote about in that earlier post.
That lead us to yesterday...
Sorry, let's recap first. Wednesday the results went as follows:
Tiffin 5 : Ohio Dominican 2
Findlay 5 : Cedarville 1
Ashland 0 : Hillsdale 3
Northwood 0 : Trevecca Nazarene 2
This is a double elimination tournament, so losing once isn't the end of the road although it is best avoided.
Okay, back to yesterday.
The day started with Northwood beating Ashland 4 to 0 and thus knocking Ashland out of the tournament
Next up was Ohio Dominican versus Cedarville. OD ended up winning that game 3 to 2 on a walk off run and with Cedarville having lost to Findlay the day before they were also eliminated.
Tiffin had a rough game against Findlay where they lost 10 to 2 and actually got run ruled.
Softball games are usually seven innings. There is a mercy rule where if a team is up by more than 8 runs going into the 5th or 6th inning they just call the game.
Later in the day yesterday Hillsdale took down Trevecca Nazarene 2 to 1 handing them their first loss of the tournament.
Then Trevecca Nazarene went on to play Ohio Dominican and ended up being them 7 to 6. If you are keeping count, that is Ohio Dominican's second loss, and now the #1 seed team in the tournament is on their way home!
Finally, in what ended up being an amazing contest, the Tiffin Dragons had to face off once again against my home town college (but not my alma matter) Northwood University.
Remember how I said softball games typically last seven innings? The Dragons/Timberwolves game went an insane 13 innings before Tiffin scored enough runs to push them ahead and then held that lead in the bottom of the 13th to win.
By the twelfth inning they were playing the "international tie break" rule set which means each team starts the inning with a runner at second base.
Final score: Tiffin 8 : Northwood 5
What that means is the Tiffin Dragons who started the season a little rough, learned from those mistakes, and finished stronger is now in the final four of their tournament.
They square off today against Trevecca Nazarene at 12:30 PM EST. You can watch the stream here if you are so inclined, and at 10:00 AM EST. Hillsdale faces off against Findlay.
Findlay and Hillsdale are the only two teams left in the tournament who haven't lost a game yet. It's going to be an exciting day of softball. I can't say for sure, but the championship game will either be played later today or tomorrow.
I'm really proud of this team. I have been critical of them through parts of the season, but for them to pull together and finish this strong is such an accomplishment. It's also some great memories for my niece in her freshman year of college!
You better believe I will be giving you updates next week. It might have to wait until after my Kentucky Derby post though!
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