I wake up, Championship Sunday. I throw on some shorts and a tee shirt to go eat some breakfast. As I enter the lobby I see my teammates sitting down eating their food. I pull a chair over and request an omelet and fruit bowl. As we eat we talk about the game coming up. Sitting inside the hotel 400ft from the water, hours in the car away from home. After a week of playing baseball, eating seafood, and walking down the beach. They day has come the day of the Championship game.

We have our bags packed, ready to head out. We wake up very early in the morning. We are leaving before anyone else, we leave at 4 in the morning. We have Weston with us, one of my teammates. He is going to be riding down with us. We play on our phones, listen to music, and just talk pretty much the whole way down. Stopping every once in a while to eat and fill up the car. The trip is rather boring, but what trip inst. Sitting in one spot going down a straight flat road for countless hours and miles.

When we arrived at the large destination called, Gulf Shores there was 62 teams. The first day here we are down at the beach and walking down the beach with my teammates trying to pick up chicks. Our postseason Mohawks are pretty sweet. We play racket ball in the hotel.

Day two, we spend playing baseball. The player we picked up named will that is from the All Arkansas team that we were on together is quite the player. We go hand in hand. We are both huge, 6’3” and 190 each. We can both stroke the ball and throw the heaters. Our team is clearly one of the best teams here. We go 2-0 the 1st day on these amazing fields, they are way better than what we have back home. Game 1 we won 14-1, beating a AA team who should not even be on the same field as us. Game 2 we spend in a pitching dual. We end up winning the game 3-0 on a walk off 3 run home run by Weston Church.

That night we spending roaming the beach. We went fishing on the shore line, we caught a lot of fish. I caught 2 sharks. They were about a foot and half a piece. We cooked all of the fish we caught and then went to bed, needing to rest for the next day.

Day three, we all wake up at the crack of dawn having the 8 O’clock game and having to show up at 7 am. Once we reach the field we all get into our stretching, and abilities lines. After we get the blood pumping be hit the batting cage. We are smashing the baseball. After we all hit we take out our gloves and warm up. I am pitching this game against one of the best teams in this tourney. We end up winning by a close score 2-1. Game 4 of the tourney comes along and our team is playing bad. The 9th inning roles around and im up 1st, we are down 3-0. I get hit in the back, that is going to leave a mark. Next Will is up, smashing a double. 3-1. Next Badger hits a 2 run home run, now 3-3. The pitcher then walks 2 straight then Weston its a Walk off double. We are now 4-0 and the 2 seed going into bracket play.

Elimination starts, its July 4. We are playing in the gold bracket and are 4-0. The team we are playing went 2-2. We take them on at 11am. It turned out to be a easy game. We hit 2 homers in the 1st inning giving us a 5-0 lead. They game stayed like that throughout, We advanced to the 2pm quarter final game against a 3-1 team for Texas. The game stayed knotted at 1-1 till the 7th when Cole hits a triple then scored on a wild pitch. They other team answered back with a 2 run home run. We were down 3-2. The bottom of the 9th came along with 1 out. I hit a double, stole third and was hit home. The next 2 guys struck out. We go into extras were we end up winning 5-4 in the 12th.

That night we partied hard. It was the 4th of July, fireworks going off everywhere down at the beach. Watching drunk people all over the place, having a great time.

The team went out for a team brunch. We played at 4pm, versus the 3rd best team in the nation. As the game started, the 1st pitch came and I stroked one right back up the middle and hit the pither in the arm. He started screaming, I stopped at 1st. Everyone runs out and he is carted away. Later in the game it is said he broke his arm. We ended up winning the game 11-8. The pitching for both of our teams was very bad. We came out with the ugly win however.

Championship Sunday, I wake up early full of energy. Its 6am, I cant sleep. I decide to go grab some food along the beach line. As a stroke down the beach I think about the game to come. I stop to grab some food and my teammate, Weston, is already here. I sit with him and we talk about the day to come. Shortly, before we realize it its time to start the game.

We are playing the 1 seed who also was 4-0 and now 7-0, just like us. The game is a pitchers dual until they hit a 3 run home run in the 6th. We fight back scoring 1 in the next 2 innings. We are down 1 going into the 8 where they score 2 more. It comes down to the 9th, bases are loaded 2 outs, I am at the plate. Tiring run  is 180ft away on 2nd. Here comes the pitch, curve I hit it up the middle, Into the outfield. The center fielder charges, one run in. Cole from second is rounding 3rd and heading for home. The fielder fires the ball. Seconds, then you see the collision. Cole ran over the catcher, safe. The catcher gets up and shoves him. I run from 1st and tackle the catcher. The benches clear. Fans are screaming and coaches are trying to pull kids off of each other. Badger gets into it with the pitcher and throws a punch into the pitchers face. Blood is covering the area around home plate. Many players are hurt, on of their coaches has a cut running across his eye.

The game goes into extras. We hold them, going into the bottom of the 10th. The 1st pitch is thrown at our head, he drops. Benches come out again, several players are thrown out of the game, the pitcher that hit him ends up with a broken collarbone from Devin body slamming him onto one of his teammates.

The game goes on, into the 13th inning Slunder is up again. Runners on 1st and second, 1out. He bunts advancing the runners to 2nd and 3rd. Harmon comes up, batting just 139 in the tourney. He gets walked on a 11 pitch at bat. Will comes up, here is the pitch… He swings, you hear the crack of the bat, the Left fielder runs back towards the wall. The ball is going...going...going. The fielder leaps…… Ball hits his glove and pops right back out going over the wall. We won!!!!!!

That night some of us went fishing and went to the strip to hang out and have fun. However, some of the people and their families went home that night. We all had a great night! We stayed out till 4 in the morning hanging out. We all had to get up early, in a few hours. We had many hours in the car, many of us would be sleeping the entire way from staying up so late and having our bodies so tired and sore from the games.

On the trip back I think about how awesome it was to go out number one in my last year of travel baseball. I had one the home-run derby skills championship. Many of my teammates one some of the skills things also, like fast most accurate, and others. Our team was clearly the best or one of the best there from day one. We proved that also winning the tourney. Me and my teammates will be playing high school baseball now, apart from each other.

Most of us have grown up together. Playing travel baseball with each other since we were 9 years old. Losing many games together and winning many. Some of them ill play with and some against in high school baseball. My teammates have been like brothers, hate them and love them. Through all of our problems and champion ships we have came out number 1. We leave our tracks unforgotten, setting the stakes high for the teams to follow in our footsteps.

Dear Mr. Lafoon,

School food chooses is one of the most talked about subjects. Some students would prefer the healthy food while others want the unhealthy. School vending machines at affected by this. Should they carry healthy snacks and drinks or a mixture of both? I feel that the choose that Arkansas made by removing “junk food” is a great step to the food in school. The students will be given better tatse for the rest of their life. Healthy food is a better sorce of energy. The obese rate in Arkansas could decrease. Arkansas could influesnce the rest of the states to better our enery an obese rates.

Healthy food is better than “junk food”. It is proven and tested, you keep a better figure and have more energy. Have G2 or powerade would be way better than soda. Instead of cookies or little debies there can be gronoal bars or fruit snacks. The enery from the gronoal bars or fruit snacks will be more efficent for the brain. Also, it will give you more energy throughout your day. Students that do sports could be very affected by this change. A health snack before practice or a games way better than junk food. It will set good examples for other students if the players tell everyone how much better it is. Students will be changing the life stlye of their age. If junk food can be taken away or just cut in half, or decrease then it would be a very good change. The change could do nothing but better todays living envirnment and todays society.

The death rate of people that eat a lot of funk food and soda is higher than the people that eat and drink healthy ideams. It makes since with that being said. Junk food contains more fat and sugar. Healthy food has more proteins, nutriants, and vitams. Your body uses the healthy food more efficiently than your body does junk food. So, the students that practice healthy eatting will more than likly live longer than their classmates that practice unhealthy eating.

Arkansas could start to become a healtier state, less obese people. Arkansas has took the step to better eatting in the school. We teach in the shcools, healthy eating should be taught and show examples of. The students should be able to see differences in the energy level they have through the day, or after school in their activities. If the vending machines reaplace junk food with healthy food then the students will be able to try the food that is better than you. They can test what they learn in health class, or the aritcles that they read, see on tv, and hear about from people.

I am glad that our state took this step, maybe other states and their schools will take the step we did. America could help America. We could have better obese rates and better energy levels.

Students have taste buds for greasy fries, soda, and potato chips. Eatting those types of food throughout a life time can, and is very bad for you. Bringing in better food and drinks to choose from in the vending machines would be a greaat starter step in the road to better food choose. Students that start the path to healthy eatting now will have a better and healthier life down the road. They will most likly have a better figure and possibly want to add physical exercise to the diet. America could go down the charts in obesity rate. If we have taste buds for fruits and veggies farmers can make more money and not just have one company take over the industry. Overall, our country could start to become better if we take this step. “One small step for man, one huge step for mankind”. This quote can be very comparable to the healthy food in the vending machines. It could posible influence students to go on to want to be researchers on food or help create healthy, or healthier “junk food”. Students taste buds could chnge a lot.

In conclision, healthy food in the vending machine is a good thing. It is a better sourse of energy. The obesity rate in our state could go down. Also, hopefully other states could follow us in this act and its a better all around country.



Sincerely,

Bryce Beckmann

Over the Christmas break I had a very eventful time. Christmas was very good! I was given many gifts and money to go spend. I’m am about to order a pair of Kd 6 energys with some of the money. One of the idems that I recieved was NBA 2K14. I have found out a way to get easy VC which is pretty much money to buy shoes, people, clothing, and skills for you Myplayer. It is a basketball game and has took up a lot of my time. With some of the money I recived I was going to go buy a pair of jeans from buckle. I picked out a pair that was 70$, then the guy asked if I liked this pair. I did, however once I saw the 145$ price tag the jeans were quickly put away. One of the things my brother got was a animal trap. I wanted to try to catch the neighbors cat, but he ended up putting it in the field by our house. My girlfriend got the Xbox1 which is pretty cool. Forza 5 is a pretty good game. The christmas food that I ate was very good! Chill was a lot of the food that I had, 2 out of 5 meals were chill. My aunt made the best, sorry mom. I had a great break topped off with a great New Years that I spent with family and friends. My break was awesome!