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Sometimes the best laid plans can go to waste, and such was the case with the Livermore Stampede softball tournament last week.
When the rains descended last Thursday and carried over to Friday morning, the tournament was scrubbed due to the fields taking too much water.
“We spent a ton of time and money working on the fields, but we just couldn’t save them,” Livermore coach Andrew Paulazzo said. “The amount of rain we got in Livermore was crazy. We got the first game (Thursday) started, and it started raining.”
And it just seemed to never stop. Friday brought hope but that was dashed early.
“Friday morning, we were out there with flashlights and all we could see was the gleam of water on the fields – they were underwater,” Paulazzo said.
By 6:15 a.m. the tournament was canceled, and that sent all the teams into search mode for games.
“There were group texts saying hey, we need games,” said Paulazzo.
Mitty was set to play Amador and Livermore got a game with Saint Francis. Paulazzo got Amador and Mitty to come to Livermore’s home field at Junction school and suddenly there was a four-team jamboree taking place on Saturday. Livermore broke out the barbecue.
“We spent more time and money getting the two fields at Junction,” Paulazzo said. “We got the worst spots taken care of and got the games in.”
And great opponents for the Dons and the Cowboys to play. Saint Francis (13-0) of Mountain View is No. 3 in the nation and No. 1 in California.
Mitty (11-1) of San Jose is No. 18 in the state.
Saint Francis beat Livermore 5-0 and Amador 8-2, while Mitty beat Amador 7-2 in eight innings and Livermore 9-5.
“It was great for the girls to get those games against those teams, so they can see where they need to be,” Paulazzo said.
For softball fans – Mitty and Saint Francis have home-and-home games this week. I will make sure to lay that out here next week.
Other spring break notes
The Service Champions Classic hosted by Livermore and Foothill managed to get in the tournament by moving games around and getting the weather to cooperate on Saturday.
College Park ended up winning the tournament, beating Redwood 4-3 in the finals.
The week before spring break, the De La Salle baseball team dropped an inexplicable 6-5 game to Dougherty Valley to give the Spartans their second loss of the EBAL season.
It figured that some team was going to suffer as soon as the Spartans got back on the diamond. In this case it was two teams. Last Friday and Saturday, De La Salle took out the frustrations, beating Freedom 24-1, and the next day they dropped Granite Bay 17-1.
Doing the simple math that is 41 runs in two games – and that is a 13-2 Granite Bay team that the Spartans hung 17 runs on.
De La Salle is back in EBAL play Tuesday at Foothill.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. This column originally appeared in Tri-Valley Preps Playbook, a weekly sports e-newsletter published by Embarcadero Media Foundation.
