excuses
My wife and I play on two different teams for softball. We're both on each team, they're just different friend groups. The two teams couldn't be any more different.
Our Tuesday team is super relaxed and we're in it for fun. It's the recreation division so nobody is super serious, the competition level is fairly even.
Our Monday team is in the "lower intermediate" division. Competition is a little more heated. That team is very serious at times, though ostensibly we're in it for fun too.
It's tournament weekend. In our first game, with the Tuesday team, we played through pouring rain - both the usual vertical and the dreaded sideways. We had fun. We won the game.
The Monday team...we arrived late in the 3rd inning because our first game went long. But that team was taking things so seriously. We weren't the greatest at the plate, and made some defensive gaps.
It's fine to play under your own expectations, but no...the bitching point was that the other team was full of spares. They were convinced half the team wasn't really part of the team (they were - my wife and I recognize a bunch of them and they were all wearing jerseys for the team). Suddenly this became the excuse. They had ringers, that's why we lost.
No. You guys got in your own heads and couldn't make it about your play on the field. Couldn't make adjustments at the plate to change your approach because what you were doing wasn't working.
When you start making excuses for why you lost, don't act surprised when you do lose.
(For the record - my wife and I had great games. I had first base locked down and caught throws that by all rights should have been too high or too low or wide. And we both had solid hits, while everyone else was flying out on a deep field.)