Porcaro is back for his second season of blogging, while King gets his first crack at it. Today is their sixth entry for the 2013 season.
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Hats off to Panther Nation!! We had more fans the whole weekend than UIC in 30-degree weather on the road! You guys are the best! Thank you for traveling and sticking it out in the frigid temps.
Man, there are so many great things to talk about from this weekend, I’ll probably forget a few. I’ll start by saying what a phenomenal job by our pitching staff. Jake Long throws another complete gem and then Tass follows it up with another great start in game two! Incredible! First time we’ve had back-to-back shutouts since 2000. That’s awesome!
The bullpen had its best outing of the year this series. Thicke, EK, Quish, and Josh threw the ball great! Unbelievable job by Quish in game three. We were down 5-zip when he came in and he goes out and keeps us in the game. You might think to yourself, “Yea, whatever the pitchers threw strikes.” No, these guys threw all their pitches for strikes in mid 30-degree temps. Outstanding job by Bigler’s troops!
Oh, I almost forgot about the offense. The bats picked up right where they left off in Wright State. As hard as it is for pitchers to throw in cold weather, it might be just as hard, if not harder to hit in colder temps. But that didn’t stop our bats from hitting bombs! Drewpy did it again, going yahtzee on his birthday! That was one of the coolest things ever! Mitchy slick had an impressive game in game two. Five hits in five at bats with two doubles and his first collegiate home run. Have a day! And he hit the home run into the wind! But no wind can hold top shelf Ghelf in the yard! Sammy Koenig swung the bat real well all weekend, and hit a BOMB in game three!
Supposed to be at "The Hank" this week, but Mother Nature might not allow us to get out there! We’ve been on the road for a while now and are looking forward to playing a home series in front of our fans! We hope to see you all this weekend for a HUGE series against Valpo!
Paco thoughts… Props to Josh Uhen for picking Florida Gulf Coast to beat Georgetown… One week away from Opening Night in the MLB! Spring break felt more like winter break part two… As much as I dislike a lot of things about Chicago (the Cubs and Bears and 99 percent of their fans) I absolutely love the Chicago skyline!
Here’s my boy EK…
Well now that spring break is over it's back to hitting the books. As important as school is, it’s hard to stay focused in class when all we want to do is play ball. We are hotter than a pistol right now and that’s what makes it hard to want to do anything else. Our bats and pitching are unstoppable right now. We let the third game slip on Saturday, but we fought our way back to make it a close play at home to tie the game. Jake Long has been phenomenal, two weekends, back to back throwing a complete game! Then Saturday Tassi came in and threw a great game, and had the bullpen finish it off. One of the most encouraging parts of the weekend is seeing our bullpen coming in and throwing well. The past couple weekends the bullpen has struggled, but it is getting turned around. We still have small glitches to fix yet, but when we do we will be lights out.
I would like to give Drew (light tower power) Pearson a birthday shout out! Hitting another bomb this weekend was the icing on the cake. Great to see the true ROOK of the team swing the bat well.
Again I would like to thank the Panther Nation for making their way to Chicago to support us in the great weather, and hope to see you guys next weekend as we take on Valpo! GO PANTHERS!!!
You guys are awesome! Can't wait for another series in Chi-town. UIC field getting to feel like "home", ha wishful thinking...
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