Border Cats Blast

My hands hurt and my voice is hoarse from clapping and shouting.

The Thunder Bay Border Cats have won the Northwoods Northern Division Playoffs! So this means we're going up against the Madison Mallards for the title of League Champions. I'm confident we can beat them (although not necessarily that we will beat them).

Tonight's game was absolutely amazing. St. Cloud scored in the first inning, but then we scored two runs at the bottom of the first and duplicated this feat in the second. Our players made some amazing plays. Don't even get me started about the umpiring. . . .

Take, for example, the bottom of the seventh. Slide into third base, safe by a mile, and the third-base umpire calls it so. But the River Bats coach comes out and starts arguing, claiming that our man was out. Soon enough, all six of the umpires are conferencing and they reverse the call. I mean, really! So our coach argues with them more, and meanwhile the River Bats coach should be tossed for the way he's arguing with those umpires. The entire stadium of loyal fans shouted "Safe! Safe!" but apparently it didn't do any good. Our man was out.

Kudos to Shawn Williams (pitcher/catcher/first baseman extraordinaire) and J.R. Voyles (pitcher turned second baseman playing shortstop) for their excellent plays to end off so many innings. Robbie Johns, our catcher, was as usual excellent. Shawn Williams was pumped to pitch the ninth inning, so much so that he striked out all three batters consecutively!

So they'll be playing in Madison tomorrow (good luck, guys!) then back here on Saturday to play game 2 of the 3 game championship series. I know I'll be watching.

Go cats go!