As I was thinking about the highs of yesterday, I am finally settled down to write the updates for day 4. If we can improve day by day like this and things can get better and better like what the team is experiencing for day 4, I would guess everyone might think twice about playing softball in Singapore. ;-). But well it is a whole lot of experience to bring back to Singapore. Team culture, training culture, softball culture, softball development model, equipment, playing field.....too many. If everyone can just pick 1 positive thing they learn here and go back home to preach and practise it, I am sure to see a brighter future for high performance softball in Singapore. For the coaches, I can only borrow a tagline to sum up our conviction to School's Softball "To learn, therefore I Teach(coach)".
Cut the cliche and to the game. We were scheduled to play the Puli Junior High today, but as the coach pointed out that they may be too young to spar competitively with our team, he suggested a re-match with the Senior High team (Puli National Vocational Institute) team after they have finish their exams at 10am. Meanwhile the junior high team will play a 2 inning game with us.
A few things were running in my mind:
1. Great! the more games the merrier.
2. Exams ?!! and they oblige to hosting us during at this time of the year??!! Kudos to the Taiwanese for the love of the game and dedication and to Puli, your hospitality!
3. (After watching the 1st inning played against the Junior High) I must say that they are as competitive in terms of competencies though lacking in a little experience. RESPECT to the U14 girls.
The game with Senior High was as exciting as before. This time we see a more aggressive offence by Puli. Run manufacturing tactics (bunt, hit-and-run and suicide squeeze) were used against our defence. The boys were initially caught off-guard by this form of aggressive play but after a quick adjustment, we managed to defuse the threat with runner on 3rd for more than 4 occasions. The boys had a fair share of poor performance at the plate at first but managed to hit back later in the innings to score some well earned runs.
Singapore Schools Won with the score of 4-1. Report over.
The sight seeing tour to Sun Moon lake did not arouse much interest in the boys ( who preferred shopping I guess ;-)) Nonetheless, they gel better as the days go by with some sharing funny moments while waiting to bus boarding time. (Photos to show later....when I can get hold of a card reader i Taipei).
The bus ride to our Dilun Hotel was a 2 hour winding uphill route. It is definitely a pleasant surprise for us to be able to stay in a hot spring resort tug in the middle of the mountain.
The boys had a great time dipping in the hot spring. 11pm roll call seemed to come so early when they had just started to have fun playing pool, table tennis, and Karaoke. (We now know that Ben Ang is a good singer, and Barathan was screaming the songs;-).
Good times fly. Memory stays. Ciao. ZZzzzzz
