Demons Look Good in Atherton
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Saturday found the Demons travelling to Shelby Lane School's field in Atherton and it was a gorgeous, sunny morning. The Shelby Lane School's field has an homage to AT&T park with a "McCovey Grove" behind right field. We arrived to find the coaches from the opposing team mowing the infield lawn with their own power mowers - they proved to be a great group of families and one of the most fun teams we've had the chance to play.
Both Jaxon and Austin had missed the last two games and their return heralded the best and most cohesive play of the season. In SAY baseball, you're not supposed to keep score - but if we had, the boys would have told you this game was their first victory of the season. Jaxon opened on the mound for the demons and pitched a strong opener. It was a bit of a wild game with four Demons - Wyatt, Verun, Zack and Michael - all getting beaned. We returned the favor (unintentionally) by beaning two of their guys. Fortunately, kids and coaches alike all realized that's a hazard of play at this age.
The Demons managed to manufacture seven runs, six of them in one inning (innings automatically end when a team scores six runs in that inning). There were a good number of strikeouts earned by Jaxon, Wyatt and Adam but they had good fielding backing them up. The middle infielders (Branden and Verun in particular) did a great job, with Wyatt and Zack helping out their own efforts on the mound by fielding some outs, too. As usual Sam looked stellar behind the plate and whapped out a pair of doubles. The combo of Wyatt pitching and Sam catching is formidable as well, but Wyatt also showed why he starts as catcher in the Spring. The home team rallied late in the fifth, and their fans enthusiastically supported their drive which was halted by a drive to the mound fielded by Zack and put away by Sam.