Editor’s note: Each spring, The Nicholls Worth and KNSU engage in a friendly best-of-three softball classic. The winning team gets to write a “slightly less-than objective” article on the game. They also get to present the Losers (capital “l” is intentional) with the Busted Ball “trophy” at the Student Media Banquet. In 10 years, KNSU has won twice.

This year, the mauling was changed to a best-of-five classic. Probably didn’t do the DJs’ self-esteem any good.

Game one started with a great deal of mystery on Sunday, April 22. Wonder of the soon-to-be outcome of the annual Nicholls Worth vs. KNSU softball bash.

Both teams were boosting with confidence and pride for their own respective organizations as they took the field.

Three games, two teams and one champion was the plan.

Thad Angelloz, former sports writer for The Nicholls Worth, started the game with the first pitch to one of the KNSU players.

The ball was slapped down for a ground ball, which was quickly fielded and thrown to first for an out.

Everyone on the TNW team saw at that point how the game was likely to be played out.

Our bats were on fire and our gloves like Venus fly traps. Nothing got by us, and we could do no wrong.

Our batting order was consistent with the rules of co-ed softball lining up boy, girl, boy, girl, and such.

Before we knew it, we had taken a 15-run lead after only two innings.

Everyone on TNW team was contributing and it was grand. I was definitely impressed by the teamwork we were demonstrating.

After all, we only had 10 players, and with them having 20 or so, we surely had no room for error or injuries.

The game carried on pretty much the same way after finally coming to an end after seven innings of play.

The outcome was better than we had hoped for. We had won with a score of 35-4.

I was sure that was it for KNSU, but surprisingly, they asked to play again.

Not concerned with winning this time, we picked up our gloves and took to the field.

We were so confident that game two would be just like the first one that KNSU surprised us by giving us a run for our money.

We learned quickly what they mean by the phrase “don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

I was getting pretty worried for a while there, because after two innings, we only had a nine-run head start.

This was pretty frightening, considering we were ahead by almost 30 points in the first game.

After a couple of scoreless innings, though, we finally got our act together and decided that we wanted to win more than they did.

We claimed the second victory of the day, 19-6.

With the second victory, we expected the championship to be over.

However, the bosses of each organization had other ideas.

They said the victory could not be given and sealed without playing a best-of-five series, since many people could not play.

So, on April 27, the teams faced off again. We met in the middle of the field for the coin toss, and it was determined that we would bat first.

This flip of the coin was KNSU’s misfortune, because we went through our entire batting order before the pitcher slammed into Aime Gauchet two feet from home plate, getting our first out of the night.

I think we all knew what the outcome of the game was going to be by the third inning, because we were up with a score of 33-3.

As the night went on, our bats were big and our runners quick. We came out victorious after a brief scare in the bottom of the seventh inning.

It was getting dark as we entered the bottom of the seventh, and KNSU began going through their lineup.

This was not a three-up, three-down inning like the others, because it was getting too dark to see, especially in the outfield.

I was so scared that a ball was going to fly out to centerfield and knock me square in the head. I would never have known what hit me.

Due to the vision difficulties, KNSU scored seven runs during their last chance at bat.

This happened to be the most runs they scored in any of the games. It’s a shame that the KNSU team needed the dark to help them even come close to being a competitor in these softball games.

Despite the scares and just plain fun, The Nicholls Worth staff came up as the champions with a huge victory of 35-10.