Our most exciting softball game so far this season came down to three words: 'Are you clutch?'

That was the question of the day as we headed into the late innings of our second softball game on Sunday. We won our first game to extend our unbeaten streak (5-0-1) and clinched at least a tie for the division title. But in the second game, our team fell behind early. I contributed to the defecit by not hitting anything on offense and colliding into other outfielders instead of catching the ball on defense. We actually gave up the max 7 runs allowed in an inning and trailed 11-2 after 4.

We had to sub in all our power bats (a.k.a the guys who didn't start because they were in a secret meeting with Rafael Palmeiro), so I did a reverse Rick Ankiel and focused on pitching instead. (I might be team leader in K's. Not so good because it's team pitch.) Our offense came alive and the defense held up, and we managed to tie the score at 11 after 6 innings. The other team did not score in the top of the 7th (and last scheduled) inning, meaning we just needed to push one across for the win. We had to settle for a tie last week because we ran out of time and most of the team was still upset over that. We did not want another tie.

So the question was: 'Are you clutch?'

My brother, Pat, was due up second in the inning and was telling me he was going to hit the first walk-off homer of the season. Team captain Bennie, due up third, told Pat just to get on base and he would drive in the winning run. We were going to find out who was clutcher. After the leadoff batter reached, both Pat and Bennie popped out and we failed to score in that inning. We weren't clutch enough. But sometimes it is better to be lucky than clutch. And lucky for us, we had some time left, so we were going to extra innings. So instead of another tie, we were putting our unbeaten streak on the line.

The other team finally managed to score again and put one on the board in the top of the 8th. So once again, we asked 'Are you clutch?' (I thought it was funny.) We had big hitters like Martin, Jeff, and Ben coming up, so I was sure we could get at least one, but we needed two for the win. I'll have to check our softball stat page later, but I think Jeff drove in the tying run and Ben got a hit to drive Jeff in for the come from behind win. Right before Ben's at-bat, I was having a good laugh and asked him 'Are you clutch?' And apparently, he is.

Man, those sixth grade girls sure played a tough game. (Okay, maybe 1 or 2 of them were 6th grade girls. But once again, it's CCU's fault for sticking us in the BB division.)