Kaunas Lituanica v. Utena Vetra : Contributing Authors

---

To my dear blog readers:
I am now in South Africa. There are so many stories to tell, and the will surely be poured out on the pages of my blog. But Right now I have only a few minutes of internet time and so i thought I would do something different for a change.

It is so amazing being here in South Africa I can not even tell you. There are some pluses I did not expect, and some minueses that I did not anticipate dealing with. But on the whole, really incredible. One thing that I was surprised by was how much I missed being with my team in Kaunas over the weekend playing baseball. We had this amazing weekend walking the beaches, playing miniature golf, meeting and spending time with the other volunteers here, but there was a small part of me that felt a bit of guilt and sadness that I was not on the field.......(a small part 😊 )

So in honor of my team (and because I don't have enough time to write an entry about my time here), this blog is about them. AND it is written by three people who over the weekend thoughtfully emailed me to keep me updated about the team's play.

FIRST from Donatas, the Kaunas Lituanica Second baseman:

On the first inning we start a rally we scored 4 runs on Dalius. On defence we were relaxed so they answered with 4 runs. actually it was one audrius and Vytas mistake and two mistakes by Andrius (your brother in law :D ) he played with us on second base cuz Arunas didn't feell well so i took SS
second and third innings went quietly and on the fourth inn we scored 3 runs including my double with two rbi's but on the fifth another mistakes rain in kaunas camp and utena tieds
the game.
then on seventh we scored two runs and Aivaras who was our starting pitcher made 3 walks in a row the sigitas substituted him for a "tetukas" (Marius Dargis) yeah he played
and you know what? His fastball was outstanding i guess at least 84mph cuz it look like very strong compering with your fastball. I'm not saying that you not throw hard but i just want to say thar Dargis throw harder. So on all loaded baes and no outs he made two K's and then my mistake letting tie the game. yeah i know i screw up but Utenas field is just a name real field but catching
is not less difficult like in Kaunas or Vilnius stadiums.
So we have tie game after 7 and in the eight kysa hits single tynta gets BB and here comes "tetukas" on second pitch ball leaves the field. We scored 4 runs and Utena anwered with two
in ninth we start rally we scored 8 runs including my base hit on the same inn i showed up in bater box again but it was Bb on bases loaded so its BB with RBI later i scored my first run in todays game so in conclusion 22-12 we won. Yeah we scored 22 runs can you imagine?

Game II:

we started aggressive in batters-box and in the first inning we took the lead. Game finished in 7th inning game 12-2 our victory.
good facts:
Draugas pitched well and the umpire was doing good job there was no reaction about given or not given strikes. I made my first ever DP when i start it i mean when i catch throw to SS and then he trows to the first. Shakilas hit two runs blast! I stole second with catching pitcher on the move you know my speed is probably slowest in the team so i strat stealing and the pitcher start a move so i reached second safely. Arunas made incredible diving catch he got on the feet quick but throw was not complete tinta had to step of the base to catch that ball.

I forgot to tell about yesterdays game in Utena about Andrius playing
he was good in batter-box with no K at 6 ab he got couple hits.

But the road to the Utena is more terrible then the last time we went we took about 2 and a half our to get there.

From Sigitas Kamandulis, the Kaunas head coach:

It was crazy game on Saturday and easy on Sunday. Marius Dargis came in the 6 inning with full bases and zero out, made two strikouts and unfortunaly In half of Donatas fault let one hit but we escaped with two runs scored. Next inning he hit homerun with vytas and Sakilas on the bases and were jumped ahead of Utena by four points. Marius didn't pitch great but good enought to keep Utena in two points away untill last inning. And we scored 9 points in last inning and finished 22-12. Next day Utena was dead and we hit well. We finished after 7 innings 12-2. Sakilas was hiting near 0.800 with homerun in Kaunas. Aivaras and Mantas hitting is coming back. And Anrius played well in second and helped us with hitting.


From Zenona (Viktorija's mom and mom of one of our players):

on Saturday I had possibility to watch baseball game between 1st Lituanica and 1st Utena. It was really crazy game-we won 22-12 (!), but at first it was 7- 7, then 9 -9. Sometimes Sigis shouted so loud...You can imagine! Andrius played first time in that game too and not bad- 1 hit, helped for to players to come home, and 2 points from him. Stravke made HR!

Today we had game in Kaunas and Utena lost 2- 12 again, after 7 kelinys (innings)... They were more tired than Kaunas.


from Will (me):
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. TWO WINS FOR KAUNAS!! WELCOME BACK STRAVKE!! WAY TO GO ANDRIUS!! WAY TO GO KAUNAS!! AND THANKS TO SIGITAS, DONATAS, AND ZENONA FOR YOUR HELP IN WRITING THIS BLOG ENTRY!!

Ikiukas. 😊

---