SOMO News

This is the fifth blog post (find others on our blog homepage!) in a series from Special Olympics Missouri Public Relations Manager Brandon Schatsiek who is in Los Angeles covering the 13 Missouri athletes competing for Special Olympics USA at the 2015 World Games.

Despite their appetite for revenge after losing to Canada just a few days ago, our softball team fell in a much closer match-up Thursday 15-13. In the afternoon, Bobby and his partner from California, Jeff Scott, received their gold medals for doubles competition and later that evening they had the opportunity to play Unified tennis with tennis legend Pete Sampras and other athletes and celebrities!

No surprise that the softball team got off to ANOTHER slow start with a morning game (10 a.m. local start time) as they worked a lead-off walk in the top of the 1st, but then went down in order with three weak ground balls. Canada would then put up 11 runs (yes, 11) in the bottom half of the inning, most of which were before the guys could even record an out. It certainly wasn’t how the team wanted to start the game and quite a few of them were hanging their heads as they came off the field to take their at-bats in the top of the 2nd. Coach Shaffer did everything she could to get the guys to forget about what happened and reiterate that the game was far from over. They donned their rally hats early and often Thursday and and it nearly worked.

They scored 8 runs in the top of the inning and had a chance with the bases loaded and two outs to tie the game or take the lead in the inning, but Canada finally stopped the bleeding and headed to the bottom half of the 2nd with a four run lead. They would get four runs back in the bottom of the inning to extend their lead and while our guys would eventually pull within two runs, the time limit was running out on them after they couldn’t tie the game in the top of the 3rd. The game ended 15-13, but what was most impressive was the guys didn’t give up despite being down by such a large amount after only the 1st inning.

Arthur Murphy and James Johnson continued their hot streaks at the plate as Arthur hit a homerun down the left-field line and James barely missed one off the top of the wall in right. Arthur just BARELY missed a HR off the top of the wall the day before, so it was cool to see him deposit one over the fence on Thursday.

Immediately after the softball team’s game, we rushed over just in time to catch the majority of Bobby’s singles match vs. Italy. As usual, Bobby was just amazing. Having the media credential allows me to be on the outside of the court during the game and it also allows me to really see up close and appreciate how great he is at tennis. I’ve played him a handful of times at Sports Camp in the past and he kills me every time. That’s not saying much because I’m not good at tennis, but he just has this way of picking his spots on when to be aggressive and when to let his opponent make the mistake rather than force the issue himself. He was superb today and won a closer match than the final score of 6-2, 6-4 indicates.

Earlier this week, three of our softball guys were able to take part in a Unified softball experience with professional ball players and celebrities and on Thursday night Bobby had that same opportunity for tennis. Originally it was only supposed to be two USA athletes, but four more spots opened up and Bobby was selected. Going in we had no idea who would be there and/or who he’d end up playing with, but lucky for Bobby he was able to play with tennis legend Pete Sampras! They did these Unified Sports experiences in New Jersey for the 2014 USA Games and I think they’re one of the best aspects of a World Games or USA Games. They allow our athletes to just relax and play the sport they love with people they look up to, many of which probably don’t have much experience interacting with people with intellectual disabilities. It was so awesome to watch Bobby smile ear to ear the whole time he was playing with Sampras. All thirteen of our Missouri boys have been spoiled this week with special experiences like this and I’m sure none will forget anytime soon.

Schedule
Friday, July 31: 1 p.m. softball vs. Canada with a berth in the gold medal game on the line #ThirdTimeIsTheCharm 
Saturday, Aug. 1: 10 a.m. Bobby’s singles match vs. Russia for the gold medal; softball TBD

As always, more photos are available on our Flickr album or our Facebook page and you can follow along during the day with live updates from the games by following our social media accounts (Facebook & Twitter).