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Final 2003 Combined Record:
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Just like the previous two or three District tournaments, Saturday morning started with a loss. However, that is where the similarities ended. In the oppressive Saturday heat, the veteran Tradewinds team bounced back with four straight victories, plus two more wins on Sunday to capture second place and earn a trip to the Class D State tournament.
Starting with the loss to Brown's Heavy Equipment on Saturday, the Clippers played five games in eight hours including victories over Dickerson Electric, Cazador (Eddie ∓ Billy), Newton Hitmen and Dublin Bay. On Sunday, after a rain-delayed start, Tradewinds continued to use tight defense to post victories over Demonstratives and Tsunami before finally falling to Mickey's Irish Pub/Bacardi O^3 in the Championship game. Tradewinds' second place finish was their highest since winning the District in consecutive years in 1998 and 1999. The Class D State tournament will be on August 15-17 at Racoon River Valley in West Des Moines.
Des Moines Register photo of Rick and Chris
July was starting to look a lot like June until someone from People's Bar ∓ Grill hit a ground ball down the third baseline to the shallow-playing Matt Pete. With two runners on, no outs, and a big lead for People's, it would actually take most of a half hour for that gentleman to really realize the implications of what he had done.
Matt picked up the grounder, stepped on third, fired to second, and the relay to first just beat the batter for a tailor-made TRIPLE PLAY. At that point People's was leading 7-0 and it seemed like a small concession to the struggling Underdogs. It was, until the bottom of the 5th inning when the Underdogs needed one run to keep from being blanked 12-0. The response was a 15-run Tradewind inning with 11 of those runs scored with two outs. Five more Underdog runs scored in the bottom of the 6th with two outs which was enough to seal the 20-15 victory for the struggling U-dogs.
2003 is starting as a year of change. Player/Manager/Owner Steve Soesbe made the decision to sponsor a second league team and actively recruit new players. The result has been nearly doubling the Tradewinds Roster and Officially creating separate "Clippers" and "Underdogs" league teams.
