SEASAC Softball in Thailand
SEASAC Softball in Thailand
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Kelly brought her students with signs to wish the senior girls softball team good luck on their SEASAC tournament at Patana School in Bangkok, Thailand. Ava had been selected for the B Team when she first tried out for the softball team before the Lunar New Year break. She had never played organized softball before and only tried it in PE. But she did really well and worked hard to improve and learn the game. One of Ava’s coaches confided in her that they considered putting her on the A Team to start the year but they wanted her to get experience in key positions on the B Team and she would be playing behind some people on the A Team and get less experience. She even tried to be a pitcher for the first time later in the season.
She was rewarded for her hard work with an invitation to play on the A Team and travel to Bangkok, Thailand when someone on the A Team couldn’t get a visa in time. The tournament was at Bangkok Patana School which ad huge fields capable of having 4 softball matches played at the same time.
Ava mostly played as the designated hitter and sometimes played in the outfield. There were games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and Ava had an amazing weekend of softball. On Friday, they started out with a 22-0 win over the Australian International School (AIS), a 9-1 win over the NIST JV Team, and an 8-6 come from behind win against Ruamradee International School (RIS) from Thailand. In their win versus RIS, they were down 1 and the other team was batting and they needed to get 3 outs in 4 minutes to go to the last inning otherwise the game would be over based on time. They got up to bat with 20 seconds to go to start the last inning and then proceeded to score 5 runs in the top of the last inning to take the lead. RIS scored 2 runs but came up short.
I arrived to watch the games on the second day and the girls lost 18-4 to the hosts, Bangkok Patana School (BPS). Then they beat a very good Stamford American International School Team (SAIS) 4-1 whihc left them 1 win from playing in the first second place game on Sunday. They squeaked out a 5-4 victory against the NIST team to make it to the final game on Sunday.
The final was an incredible game with ups and downs. They ended up playing Bangkok Patana School (BPS) who beat them 18-4 in the round robin. UWC stormed out to a 4-0 lead and BPS clawed their way back and took the lead 5-4 on a contested play at home. UWC tied up the game 5-5.
Then the biggest play of the game happened in the top of the 6th inning. One of BPS players had a huge hit down the left field line and I saw it landed foul and before the home run fence as did the UWC player who was close to the play. In fact, the players running around the bases all ran back to their bases because they thought it was foul too. The home plate umpire saw the ball and seemed to call foul but then went and talked to the scorer’s table behind the home plate fence who said it was a home run and so they got two points and had a 7-5 lead. UWC came back and tied the game 7-7 in the bottom of the 7th and final inning to send the game into extra innings. BPS scored a run to take the lead and UWC had someone on third but they got out while running home.
It was an incredible weekend and such an exciting and wonderful experience. I ended up taking about 10,000 photos as the camera was set to capture 120 photos per second when the players were batting so I could get the peak of the action. For regular action it was 30 frames per second. Here are some of my favourite photos of Ava.