As Sennet’s season with the North Seattle Baseball Cubs was ending, Coach Dan pulled us aside and told us about another team they had which had 5 kids from the Cubs on it (Troy, Cayden, Brooks, Miles, and Luca). This was a travel team that they put together to play in tournaments around the state. He said they would like Sennet to join the team. In addition to the Cubs players, Radiator also had Coach Dan, Coach Jason, and Coach Ted – all whom we both really liked and thought were great, patient, positive, teaching coaches.

We had wanted Sennet to play some summer baseball, and had in fact signed him up for a try-out for the very next day with a summer team in Bellevue. We thought about it and decided we’d love to stick with the coaches we knew and players we liked.

Radiator also had some kids from other NSB teams: Noah, Julian, Christopher, Jack, and Malakai. In addition, Malakai’s dad Jordan was another of the coaches.

Sennet played in a scrimmage with them against another Bellevue team and did fairly well. Radiator had a few practices and then it was right into his first tournament with them. It was down in Fife, about 40 minutes south of Seattle over the weekend of June 24-25.

Radiator won their first game of the tournament 15-0, against Port Angeles. Ump called the mercy rule end of the third inning. Sennet walked his first time up and stole second and ended up scoring. His second time up he he hit a fly ball that was caught but he wasn’t too upset because he didn’t strike out. He also pitched an inning and did great – only one hit and gave up no runs, obviously. Great start.

They won the second game of the tournament too! But it was brutal. First game was over around noon, second game started around 5:15! Team went to a restaurant for lunch, but the rest of the time tried to relax in the shade since it was in the upper 80s.

Sennet tweaked his shoulder messing around. That combined with the heat and he sort of mentally checked out and said he couldn’t play. The team was pretty low energy and fell behind to the Washington Athletics Gold team early, 0-3 in the first inning. Took them a while to come around, but then they woke up both on offense and defense and ended up winning 8-4. Sennet didn’t play.

Since Fife was so close, we all drove home to sleep in own beds and get ready for Sunday.

Sunday’s game was at 11am against IBC Purple. Another victory and another shutout. 8-0. Sennet’s neck felt a lot better after a good nights sleep. He played right field and second base but didn’t see any action. He flied out and struck out swinging his two times up to bat. The coaches and us were pleased with his aggressiveness at the plate. With that victory Radiator was in the Championship game, which wasn’t played until 5pm.

The team went to a BBQ restaurant for lunch, and then laid under the trees in the shade to stay rested for the final. At one point Coach Ted hacked the sprinkler system and we all ran through the sprinklers in a welcome relief to the 90 degree day.

The championship game was against Rock Creek Select. Sennet played right field, and also got a walk, stole second and stole third (which was super close he was almost out but for his speed) and scored a run. But the team is strong and the coaches are stellar and they got the victory: Radiator won 9-5, and that was the most runs they gave up in any game this tournament. GSL State Tourney Champs.