Weekend recap: Regionals

You don't really need more stats than just 29-5--the final score--to explain how well West Raleigh played at the Southeast Regionals.

But if that was the case, we wouldn't have a blog, would we? So here's a few more stats from the weekend. Keep in mind, all of these were compiled against the very best teams in the Southeast United States, not some bunch of scrubs from the playground:

• 8U Blue outscored their Southeast Regional opponents 107-24.
• West Raleigh pounded out 35 hits in the championship game, an average of approximately nine hits per inning. Six of 8U Blue's seven opponents at the Regional did not get nine hits in the entire GAME. 
• The exception was Giles County (Tenn), which picked up 13 hits. Think about how well you thought Giles County hit the ball in that game...now consider that West Raleigh got almost three times that many hits in the title game, in two fewer innings.
•  West Raleigh hit .579 as a team at the regionals.
• The 8U Blue defense turned six double plays in Varina, more than in any other tournament this summer.
• West Raleigh scored in 17 of its final 19 innings at the regional.
• For the season, West Raleigh was held scoreless in just 31 of the 155 (exactly 20 percent) offensive innings it played this year. 
• Nineteen of the 34 games (55.9%) that 8U Blue played this season were ended early by the mercy rule. 
• Ten of the 14 games (71.4%) that 8U Blue played at the states and regionals were ended early by the mercy rule. Think about that: against the best competition the team faced all year, they were stretched to six innings just four times.
• The closest game West Raleigh played at states and regionals was the 8-3 semifinal win over Longwood (Fl.) at regionals. Of course, that game actually should have been 9-3, but, well, you know...
• As you've probably heard, West Raleigh was undefeated this summer, going 34-0. What you might not know is that 8U Blue was outscored in just 14 of the 170 innings they played this year (8.2%). 
• The whippings West Raleigh laid on Longwood and Palm Beach Gardens on Sunday were especially impressive because those two teams were coming off convincing wins of their own. Longwood had just thrashed Fishhawk (a team that finished pool play at 4-0) 18-3, while Palm Beach Gardens beat Julington Creek (another undefeated team) 14-2 in the semis.
• Even more amazingly, 8U Blue trailed at the end of an inning just four times in 170 opportunities (2.3%). Those four: a 1-0 first-inning deficit against West Raleigh White; the second and third innings against the DC Bomb Squad; and a 1-0 deficit at the end of two against the North Wake Rockets at Thomas Brooks. Collectively, West Raleigh won the games in which they trailed by a final score of 32-10.
• The 29 runs were the most ever scored in a Southeast Regional Cal Ripken 8U game, or at least since online records are available (dating back to 2008).
• The 107 runs scored by West Raleigh during the event were likewise a record dating back to 2008. The previous mark was set by the 2009 and 2011 West Raleigh squads, each of which posted 83 runs in their seven games, meaning the 2013 club put up over 25 percent more runs than the previous record.

Let's take a look back at the stated regional goals:

Win the Southeast Regional.

Check. This will be painful for some of you to watch, but the whole thing reminded me of Danny Green's comments upon returning to Chapel Hill in 2009 after winning the national title. Click ahead to the 0:45 mark in this video and just listen to the first four sentences he says:



"We did it, y'all, we did it. But the WAY we did it, though, did you see how we did it?"

Hit at least .600 as a team for the tournament.

What? Only .579? That's it--everyone into the batting cage RIGHT NOW.

Bash at least 30 extra-base hits as a team.

Check. 32 extra-base hits for the weekend.

No more than ten scoreless innings in the potential seven games.

Try just seven scoreless innings in the seven games.

No more than 12 errors in the potential seven games. 

When this goal was written, I didn't realize we'd be playing on such a pristine surface.  The final total for the weekend was 19 errors, but honestly, at least half of those were bad-hop errors that, if the scorekeeper was a nicer guy instead of a ruthless, cold-hearted devil, could've been hits.

Hold the opponents scoreless in at least half of the innings played.

This was kind of a lofty goal against the best teams in the Southeast. After all, they were hitting off the machine just like we were, and it's not like it was the incredible 8U Blue pitching that held them down. But West Raleigh made all the plays when they had to, and held opponents scoreless in 26 of the 35 innings played in Varina.