After watching Fort Dale's softball season open with a 28-0 loss, I can truly say that I feel their pain.

It's frustrating to watch a team basically score at will when you are struggling to score once.

I also know what it feels like to rebound from games like that and be successful.

All my life I've never really known it was possible to lose by 80 points. I mean it had been done on Sega and Playstation, but never in real life, but during my second year at Troy State, the lesson was quickly learned. I've been in Butler County for a little while and as some people can tell, I'm not built for height or speed. Given those obvious facts, I was still goaded into playing intramural basketball.

It was a really good experience because the guys on the team had actually played basketball before so we had that going for us. In our first game as the "Parrottheads," we took on a squad that had played high school hoops together.

And you could tell.

The motley crew that made up the "Parrottheads" quickly scored 10 points in the first period.

It was all downhill from there.

Our opponents pushed the ball up the floor again, and again, and again and again and then when they felt like they had a comfortable lead, they jumped into a full-court press to push the lead further ahead.

At the half, it was 55-12. We managed an accidental basket in the second period.

Things didn't get any better for us in the second half. We'd inbound the ball and then they'd score with it. We'd pass the ball and they'd score with it.

For a second the game seemed more like a scrimmage than an actual game. Mercifully, after hitting a three-point basket the third period ended.

That period-ending basket helped us cut the lead to 65, 80-15.

Our opponents actually let us score a basket to open the fourth and final period. When I say let us, I mean we basically "footballed" our way down the floor and scored.

By the grace of all that's good, the final horn sounded and the "Parrottheads" had taken it on the beak, 97-17.

The good thing about the loss was that it took us out of the class of teams that knew what they were doing and put us in the ones with the guys who were just playing to play. We rebounded from the loss and went on to play in the finals of the league championship.

While there are some teams that are simply better than others, Fort Dale has the opportunity to take this loss, learn from it, and take what they've learned and get ready for the next opponent.

You also don't get better by playing creampuffs. Fort Dale's next opponent is Faith on Saturday. Let's go FDA, De-horn the Rams and pick up a pair of W's.

It's that simple.

Griffin Pritchard is the sports editor of the Greenville Advocate. He can be reached by phone: 382-3111 ext. 122 or via the internet: griffin.pritchard@greenvilleadvocate.com.