Playoff batting lineup

Coach says:

Ok, guys......this is probably the beginning of a series of emails in prep for tomorrow night's big game against Hi Tech!!! We just got back from our trip on Tuesday..... but, we've been thinking about you guys a lot during our Aussie/NZ trip. Very excited about winning it all and the first step is taking care of business tomorrow.... ..

It looks like ONE run kept us away from being the #3 seed and playing Westgate. Well, that's ok......we will be at full strength (at least w/the guys) on Friday. I seriously think we have a good chance to finally beat these guys. After brainstorming with you all, we're going to go with a different strategy for defense. All guys in the outfield. One girl in the roaming outfield area. In other words, all the guys will man the outermost layer of the outfield. With Amit, Appu, and Naveen.....there is a lot of speed to chase after the ball. If we can run down and catch a couple of those balls that escaped us last time, we'll save a few runs for sure. We'll use our roaming OF (s-diddy) to help snag the short OF balls.

Karthik will start us off on the mound. Anjali will take over 1st base. So, we'll have three girls in the infield. I'm going with the assumption that Hi Tech will continue to swing away and go for the Home Runs.....hence our beefing up of the outfield. If they start pounding the ball into the ground.....and score runs that way.....we'll look to make a change. But, I'm guessing that they will still go for the Big Fly and test our outfielders once again.

That said, here is our lineup for tomorrow night. Get yourself ready.....this could be a great ending to our inaugural season. If possible, I would like everybody to show up at 6:30 so we can warm up and talk through some things. Our game is at 7:40.

------------ --------- ------

RF	Amit
2B	Leena
SS	Chethan
1B	Anjali
LF	Appu
3B	Preeti S
SP	Karthik
CA	Sammy
DH	Ranjeet
DH	Preeti A
CF	Naveen
FL	Srivalli

------------ --------- -------

Put me in coach, I'm ready to play:

Venu, Shrisha, and Robert

Out for this game:

DJ

Play-offs

Playoff schedule after following the rulebook guidelines:

1.

The top 4 teams advance to the post season:
Game 1 - 3^rd place Vs 2^nd place/home team Time limit & Run rules apply.
Game 2 - 4^th place Vs 1^st place/home team Time limit & Run rules apply.
Championship – winners of games 1 & 2 higher seed is the home team. No time limit, Run rule applies

2. Tiebreaker will be determined by head-to-head record and run differential to decide placement of play off teams.

3.All players participating in the post season must have played in 1/3 of it's teams games (official at bat) and will be required to have a valid pictured ID in his/her possession or risk forfeiting the game.

4.Prior to all playoff games ID will be checked to verify each player meets the minimum requirements of eligibility.

======================================

Since the Desis and St.Tims were tied at the third place, the tie-breaker rules apply:
game 1: tie: 4-4
game 2: desis 8-6
game 3: tims 12-9

They have a 1 run lead in the differential.
At 6.30PM: St.Timothys Vs Westgate.
At 7.40PM: Desis Vs Hi-tech.
At 8.50PM: Finals <\font>

pre-playoff practice

Sunday, Sep 24, 10am:

Roster: Amit, Anjali, Appu, Dumma, Leena, Sam, Rishon and Karthik

We started around 10:15am, warming up, stretching and catching.
Started the batting practice around 10:30am. Each person got to hit about 25-30 pitches(Anjali and I pitched)
We focused on hitting the ball on the ground, infield, while the folks practiced single/double plays.
We almost did 2 rounds per player. A good 2 hours on the field. Felt good. i think with another mid week practice, either on the field or at the batting cages, our skills and our confidence should be chiseled in a positive way.

Last regular season game : Desis 2 - Hi Tech 13

Game report from karthik:

We lost badly. 13-2. Started off the first innning with 2 runs on the board.
Their response? 11 runs. They got 5 runs after the 2nd out. We didnt score in the second inning, but didnt let them either. Third inning,no score from desis. they scored 2, with 1 out, but the umpire called time at 70 mins.
I dont know if it is just me, but somehow it felt like we didnt play with the fire or the energy like the previous games. It almost felt like, we had accepted to lose, before the start of the game.
So much for my theory...lets improvise for the playoffs.

game report by amit:

we lost again. 13-2. it wasn't as bad as it sounds. they got up by 11-2 after the first and we held them to 2 more runs in 3 innings after that.

looks like we'll play them again next week (btw, it's a 6:30 game). we kinda figured that they aren't as good as we thought they were.....a couple of fewer lucky hits and the game would have been much closer. next week, the cavalry comes back, and they'll be in for a surprise.

So, we decided to have a sunday practice...I' ll send out a separate email on that later.

Last regular season game - Mail from the coach

From: Amit Rele

Mailed-By: returns.groups.yahoo.com

Reply-To: desi_nationals@yahoogroups.com

To: desi_nationals@yahoogroups.com

Date: Sep 22, 2006 9:44 AM

Subject: [desi_nationals] game tonight

Folks,

Game time tonight for 3rd place vs High Tech is at 8pm. So, here's the deal:
we're currently tied for 3rd with St Tim, one point behind Westgate.
St Tim plays Westgate tonight at 7 and we play Hi Tech at 8.
Hi Tech has nothing to play for tonight as they've clinched the 1st seed, so, they won't have the same motivation as we will.

Starting line up is the same as last week with the addition of Venu G in RCF. Appu may be there, and if he is, then he'll hit 3rd and play SS and I'll move back to 3B. I'll juggle the fielding positions after giving it some thought.

So, let's show up a little early and root for Westgate and scout the other teams. The goal for tonight is to win and to get ready for the playoffs.

let's go Nationals!

-Amit

After 8 games : Team standings

Just one more game, before the regular season ends and the playoffs begin. Here is where we stand.

Team	GP	W	L	T	Pts
Hi Tech Manufactoring	8	6	1	1	13
Westgate	8	2	3	3	7
Desi Nationals	8	2	4	2	6
St Timothys Luteran	8	2	4	2	6

We're tied for 3rd place with St. Timothys with 6 points each. As it stands today, if they were to compare us to just the runs scored, then we have:

Desi nationals - 51 runs ( wow, we scored so much??!!)
St. Timothys - 54 runs

Scenario A: Westgate beats St. Timothys and we win against Hi-tech, we're in 3rd place.

Scenario B: Westgate beats St. Timothys and we lost against hi-tech. In this case, we have to make sure that we score more runs than St. Timothys. Lets make this our main focus - scoring as many runs as possible!!

Scenario C: St Timothys beats Westgate. We start preparing for the fall season!!

Desis 9 - St. Timothys Lutheran 12

Game 8: Sep 15th. Mise Park, San Jose. 7pm.

The roster was a full house - aka 11 people. I had to sit out to babysit Rishon.

Line Up:

Sammy - CA
Dumma - 1B
Leena - 2B
Amit - SS
Shrisha - 3B
Anjali - SP
VenuJ - LF
PreethiS - LCF
Robert - RCF
DJ - RF

We started off well in the first inning with good momentum, getting quick outs and being sharp on the field. The hitting was consistent too, with almost everyone getting a hit of some sort.
We were leading 7-2 at the bottom of the second.

Looks like our lineup is good only for 2 innings. The third inning performance was somewhat poor by us. St. Timothys scored 3 more to make the score 7-5. We couldnt put any runs the 3rd inning.

We went into the 4th with St Timothy's hitting. We just had to hold them to win the game.
But they just went beserk with thier hitting. No big hits, but consistent hitting out of the infield but way short for anyone on the outfield. Before we realised, they had 7 more runs.
7-12 the score, when we went to bat for the last inning. Too much pressure, just put on 2 more runs.

One notable thing, was we are constantly evolving as a team and last friday, we played the best of our games with more confidence, consistency and discipline. But that wasnt good enough for a win.

We need consistency in both hitting and fielding, and cant have sweet spots in the line up.
Anjali's recommendation is for us to go to the batting cages this wednesday. We need to firm up that.

Next week, its Hi-tech. Lets prepare...

Desis 7 - Westgate 6

Mail by stand-in Captn/Coach Amit:

What a total team win for the Desi Nationals as they beat Westgate tonight by a score 7-6! we led 7-0 with 2 innings to go, but we held on to win by the closest of margins. It was a total team effort with 2 home runs by 2 players....way to go Venu! phenomenal outfield catches, a couple of hustle plays by Robert, a great catch by Sammy at home, the usual consistent hitting by Leena. I think she's got the highest on-base percentage of all of us! Ranjeet had an awesome foul catch at 1st and got a crutial out for us. Preeti played flawlessly at 3 positions throughout the game (3B, LF and C). awesome pitching by Anjali, great outfield play by Karthik, Venu and Robert. We missed DJ out there and can't wait for her to get back. I can't remember everything (I've had a couple of beers :), but I'm still on cloud nine ...and it's not just from the beer! :)

After the game, even a couple of guys from Westgate came over and admired how far we've come since the first game. they're afraid of us as we're picking up momentum and going to be a real force in the playoffs. we're 1 point from 2nd place and will be playing St Timothy's for 2nd place next week. way to go team!

Player Availability sign up sheet posted

The player availability sign up sheet for the next 3 regular season games and the playoffs are now posted.

its at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=o01797710274281430325.1269522704903711826

Please email Karthik Vugane to get access to exit.(sorry cant post my email here for the fear of spam bots).