Palatine Bulldogs fight for victory
The Palatine Bulldogs 9U Travel team won the Barrington Classic Tournament held July 7-10, at The Field of Dreams in Barrington.
Palatine advanced to the semifinals with victories over Wasco and Schaumburg and faced a tough Mount Prospect team on Sunday. It was a low scoring game until the Palatine hitters came alive in the later innings to secure a 12-3 victory.
The Bulldogs then moved on to the finals to face an undefeated Mundelein team, who had just beat Cary in a hard fought nine inning game.
The young Palatine team was ready to go from the start. They scored 7 runs in the top of the first inning and never looked back. They went on to win their first championship 12-0!
The Bulldogs went up to Grayslake for the next tournament and again advanced to the championship game. After defeating some tough teams from Antioch and Gurnee, Palatine’s run for a second consecutive championship was stopped by a very good Lake in the Hills team. However, the boys did enjoy the experience of another championship run and brought home some nice trophies.
The team wasn’t done yet. After a rain shortened tournament in Lombard where the ‘Dogs went 1-1, it was on to Hoffman Estates for the 2011 Summer Challenge. The Bulldogs defeated the Horner Park team from Chicago, who had won 30 plus games this season, with a come from behind, extra inning 10-9 victory. The kids really showed that they were resilient and battled this tough team all night before finally coming away with the victory.
After victories over Hoffman Estates and OZ Park (Chicago), Palatine earned a number one seed in the semifinals.
The Bulldogs won 12-1 in the semi’s and then faced the tough challenge of the Horner Park team again in the championship. These boys were no strangers to the nerves of playing in a championship game, having been in two the last three weeks.
Horner Park jumped on the board first with 3 runs in the first inning. After a couple a scoreless innings, Palatine scored 4 to take a 4-3 lead after three innings. Horner went ahead 5-4 after the fourth and the heat finally got to the boys as they were unable to mount another come from behind victory and eventually fell to the tough Chicago team by 9.
The Horner Park coach challenged Palatine to a third game to see who would win the “series” between these two teams since the teams split one game a piece in this tournament. Horner Park is hosting a tournament in a few weeks, let’s see what happens.
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