Photo courtesy of Mikala Minn
The Indigenatives, all but three of whom hail from Hawaii, took this year's intramural softball championships. They defeated the Sunshine Dandies 19-9 and took down the Raider Coaches 14-10.

Congratulations to the Indigenatives for becoming one of the only teams in SOU Intramural Softball history to win back to back Coed. Rec. League Championships!

The team consisted of students from Hawaii along with three mainlanders who ran the 2008 table.

In Monday’s title game vs. the Sunshine Dandies, a team of Lacrosse players and friends, the Indigenatives exploded for 10 runs in the first inning, demoralizing their opponents right off the bat. Still, the Dandies refused to wilt on a smoldering valley afternoon, and in the third inning, they cut the seemingly insurmountable lead to five, at 11-6. As if offended by their opponent’s attempt to challenge their prowess, "InI," as they call themselves, cashed in another four runs in the bottom half of the same inning to extend their lead to nine.

The Dandies fought back, scoring three more in the top of the fourth, but as they had done all season, InI responded with four runs of their own, giving themselves a ten-run lead and the victory with a final score of 19-9. The trophy will sit in their case for at least another year.

May 22:

Working hard all season to redeem themselves after losing a heartbreaker in the Powerhouse League Semifinals last season to Team Sparta, formerly known as the Stunna's, the Indigenatives (yes, those darn Hawaiians) found themselves in the game that means everything once again.

This time, however, they would face the Raider Coaches under-skipper Steve Helminiak and behind the experienced arm of women’s basketball head coach Lynn Kennedy.

Unlike on Monday, when the weather favored the Hawaiians and friends with their ability and preference to play in 90 degree weather, the Indigenatives would not find comfort in the storm front that rolled through the valley on Thursday afternoon, bringing with it 15 to 20 mile per hour winds and temperatures that failed to break fifty degrees. The coaches, on the other hand, were not phased, coming out with steaming hot bats that resulted in five first inning runs. Calm and collected, InI buckled down on defense, buying time for their bats. And as the story wrote itself Monday, the top seed began scoring runs in bunches, three here, four there, a homerun now and another later, and all of a sudden it was Indigenatives 11, Coaches 7. Still the coaches’ bats held steady, and by the fifth inning, they found themselves within one run at 11-10.

With emotions heating up and bats cooling off, the fate of both teams sat in the collective heel of their gloves. Who would make the plays in the field? For an inning at least, both teams would. But by the bottom of the sixth, InI came alive for one last push. A single up the middle to start it off, an opposite field double to put runners in scoring position and a three-run jack to cap it off. Both teams fought and pulled out all the stops throughout, but in the end, it was Indigenatives 14, Coaches 10. Between the teams afterward, it was pure props, sincere class and sportsmanship all around.