One Mistake Is All It Takes To Lose The Chase

If you bear with me this will eventually get to NASCAR – I promise.

If you don’t know it by now I do a lot of coaching – pretty much 9 months of the year. My coaching season started off with Baseball; Senior Girls 3-Pitch to be exact.

Not to sound too egotistical but I usually have pretty good teams each year.

A few years back I won the city Championship with a legally blind girl on my team and the next year I had a legally deaf girl on my team and we finished in the final 4. And they played in every game.

We don't discriminate in any way. It isn't about winning, it is about building your physical skills and your team skills; improving both as a player and as a teammate. It is about getting better than the way you were. For some of these girls this will be the only organized ball they will every play.

These are the reasons why I coach.

We almost always finish in the final 4 too. O.k. that was egotistical, but it’s the truth.

Well this year’s version of my team played in their tournament this past week.

To put it quite frank, we kicked butt!

Out of the 5 games we played we either outscored our opponents or at least tied them in every inning but one. We outscored our opponents by a total score of 54-18. We only had four errors all day.

We had a dream tournament right? We should have won the Championship right? Wrong.

You see, we didn’t even make it into the Championship.

How so?

Remember how we won or tied every inning but one and those four errors?

Well, all four of those errors came in that inning that we lost (oops) and that inning cost us to lose the game too. The team that beat us that inning won the game and went on to the Championships.

You see, that team won but they didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves with our errors.

Sucks doesn’t it?

Yep.

And let me tell you this NASCAR Chase format is like our 3-Pitch tournament format.

Essentially you have to put together a near perfect run in the Chase or you’ll get knocked out of it.

One bad mistake can cost you the Championship like that one bad inning cost a chance to get into the Championship game.

We finished second in our division and third over all with a 4-1 record. Not too shabby really, but what could of happened if we didn’t beat ourselves? We’ll never know really, and this would be the exact same answer by any driver who didn’t win the Championship because of one silly error on his part or his team’s part.

The Chase is that tight. Just ask Kasey Kahne or Denny Hamlin if you don't believe me, they'll tell you.

Oh, and that would be another final 4 finish for us again this year BTW.