Softball in double-elimination tourney

And then there were four. The Thursday night softball league are in the process of having their end of the season tourney. They chose to play a double-elimination tourney. After the first night, three of the seven teams had suffered two defeats and were eliminated from the tourney. The remaining four will battle it out for the J. Hudson Memorial traveling trophy, which has been presented to the end of the season tourney champion since 1982.

In a short term tourneys, anything can happen because all the bad luck you might have had over a prolonged season can be righted with a small win streak. On the otherhand, top-seeded teams are there for a reason. The three top-seeded teams did survive the first night and were joined by the sixth seed.

In one opening game, #3 T-Baggers scored ten in the first inning and lost an 18-8 lead when #6 Zeros scored ten to tie but the TBags would get one more the Zeros could not match to win 19-18. The other opening game matched #4 Fighting Pharmers against #5 Slapnut Magoos. Most scores came early for both as the Magoos won a close one 9-6. Next the #2 Dripping Royalty took on #7 Lastros. Royalty had too much firepower in putting the Lastros in the losers bracket 15-2. #1 Sons of Pitches opened their play of the night with the Magoos. They pushed out to a 19-7 lead but the Magoos would make a game of it before falling 19-15. The first big matchup pitted the Royalty against the T-Baggers. Royalty stroked eleven hits and ten runs to vault them to a lead they would not give up in defeating the T-Baggers 16-6. In one of the elimination games Zeros took on the Lastros. The Lastros scored the first five but the Zeros countered with 15 to send the Lastros home. The Zeros then battled the Pharmers. The Pharmers would only get five in the game and once again the Zeros would send an opponent home with a 14-5 win. In the final elimination game of the night, it was T-Baggers vs Magoos. It looked like the Magoos might finally upset the T-Baggers as they led 17-10 going into the final inning and fighting the clock. With seconds ticking off Nolan Mast climaxed the comeback with a three-run homerun to give the T-Baggers a 18-17 victory and a chance to live another day.

Tonight the schedule will be thus: Undefeated teams Sons of Pitchs and Dripping Royalty will go head-to-head for the edge. On the other field, defending champion Zeros will take on the T-Baggers in the first elimination game of the night. Someone will be left standing alone at the end of the night.