The Journey: UIC

Junior Sam Sivilotti and sophomore Greg Blohowiak, members of the UWM baseball team, will be blogging all season long on the UWM website. This is their sixth entry.

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"Light post and back is one..."

It is no question that the past couple weeks have been a struggle. A struggle to find out where we stand compared to other teams as well as amongst ourselves. Suffering several heartbreaking losses, and also some embarrassing losses, we had a very sour taste in our mouths. This does not cause us to dwell on ourselves though, we take it as a learning point and grow from there. Following the rough patch of games, this is the time of year we were all preparing for; opening weekend in conference. For our first series in the Horizon League we would be facing off against our rival, University of Illinois-Chicago. Winners of the last seven regular-season titles, UIC is like the Vikings to the Packers. The energy and anticipation that go along with playing against this team is unmeasurable.

We boarded the bus once again and began our (very relieving) short trip to Chicago. Only about an hour and a half, we put a movie in (Blind Side, great movie!!) and enjoyed the ride. We would not be stopping at our hotel before the game, therefore many of the guys were changing on the bus as we were pulling into Les Miller Field. It was a bit windy, as expected, with the sun beating down on us along with 40-degree weather as we began batting practice. We finished up the pregame routines as usual and lined up for the recorded anthem.

Like I said before, energy for this game would be unmeasurable. We were lined up on the front edge of the dugout cheering on our hitters as we laced single after single to get out to a 2-0 lead after the first inning. On the bump for us was Chad Pierce, who is pitching stellar this year, who has also been on the short end of some walk-off wins. He is reigning Horizon League Pitcher of the Week and brought his game to Chicago. Following another run in the second inning off of a walk and a laser back at the pitchers foot by Sam Sivilotti, Jon Capasso was plated on a fielders choice. After an answer by UIC the score was 3-1 after three full innings. Following a couple more runs by UIC the score was deadlocked at three when senior Dan Buchholz smashed a homerun over the left field wall to regain the lead with two innings left to play.

The first game versus UIC was one that was far too cliche. UIC is a baseball team known for playing small ball (bunting, stealing, hit and run) as well as taking advantage of their opponents mistakes. In this game Pierce surrendered three runs, with none of them being earned. Our defense played a little shaky the first game having five errors to show for it. Even though we did not play the type of baseball that was ideal in beating a well-rounded team, we had a 5-3 lead going into the bottom of the 9th inning. Coming in for the save was sophomore Cameron Amsrud, a submarine guy who has a large amount of experience, and is no push over. He began the inning getting a pop out to Cole Kraft. Following a couple singles and a hit by pitch, Amsrud found himself pitching with the bases loaded. With the score still at 5-3, UIC second basemen Matt Serna took a pitch from Amsrud off the thigh, getting an RBI and closing the gap with us to one.

This seemed like a bad nightmare, with this same situation occurring at least five times in the past. With two outs and the bases loaded, Cameron got a ground ball to 3rd basemen Dan Buchholz, which seemingly was the relief we needed to get this win. However, after bobbling the ball he had to resort to diving at the running attempting to advance to 3rd. A fully outstretched Buchholz dove and tagged the UIC runner on the back, which made us hold our breath waiting for the umpire to make his call. The umpire ruled the runner safe, to much distaste from all of our players, but the most angry was Buchholz, who looked as though he was going to rip off someone’s head. On that controversial play the runner from third scored tying the game at 5 runs a piece. It was almost surreal that this was happening again, to such a competitive and talented team. Following a walk to the next batter we found ourselves wondering what had just happened, pinching ourselves to see if it really was a bad dream. After several minutes of cleaning up the dugout and boarding the bus, the upperclassmen made a decision that the kind of baseball we played was unacceptable and we would have to face some punishment. This decision was one that was almost expected following that performance, as well as following the performance earlier in the week when we let another game slip away in the latter innings versus Northern Illinois.

When we arrived to our hotel we got our room assignments and gathered in the lobby 15 minutes after with shorts and workout gear on. As a team we marched outside to an unknown baseball diamond at dusk. We had to get mentally tougher and in order to teach a lesson we began doing sprints. We chose to sprint from one light post to another with a down and back equaling one. All in all, we as a team had completed 15 of these sprints before joining together as one. With gasping for air and cramps setting in we got in close and had a talk. Led by senior Shaun Wegner and junior Sam Sivilotti, this inspirational meeting was one unlike any other. With all of our cards on the table we could not afford to go 0-2 to begin our conference play. We had to come together as one unit and compete against another unit of men in order to prevail in a game we each love to play. There is no question that wood was added to the fire that was a rivalry conference game. Saturday is a new day, with the same opponent, same game, same diamond, same players, but most importantly ... a new mindset.

We awoke Saturday morning with a chip on our shoulders and a point to prove. We arrived at the field and got our game on. After the usual pregame rituals we prepared for a long day full of baseball. You could tell our loss the day before and running gave us a sour taste. We exploded for 12 runs over the first 5 innings of the game with all nine starters recording a hit and seven of them recording multi-hit games led by Cole Kraft (3-4, 1 RBI, 2 Runs), Ben Long (3-5, 3 RBI’s) and Tim Patzman (3-4, 1 RBI, 2 Runs). Starting the game on the mound was Jeff Gordon. He was scheduled to only pitch one inning and then hand off the game to Kyle Schmidt. Gordon had a flawless first inning while only throwing one off speed pitch. Sophomore Kyle Schmidt took it from there, going the rest of the way while giving up no earned runs. There was a five-run outburst for UIC in the bottom half of the 5th inning, however the runs were scored following some errors in the field, therefore Schmidt did not give up an earned run. The final score of the game was 13-5. This game was one that was played much better than the one from the day before. Even though we had some hiccups in the field, we maintained focus throughout much of the game. It was a very positive way to come out and play the first game of a doubleheader, especially following the rough outcome Friday. Nevertheless, we have to now forget about all of the achievements we made in this game and focus on the third game of our series.

In this pivotal game of our series, it would determine if we had a successful or an unsuccessful opening weekend in league play. The second game did not see as much offensive firepower, however we did open up with three straight one-run innings, while also threatening to score more. We got out to a 3-0 lead, but then UIC had taken advantage of some errors and strung some hits together to plate five to bring the score to 5-3 UIC at the end of three innings. From there on out we seemed to be deflated by their pitching and their defense. It was a day were we couldn’t catch a break and we came up on the short end of some good plays by their defense. With the score at 6-4, Jordan Herbert (starting pitcher) saw his outing come to a close after giving up a homerun and walk. He didn’t have one of his better outings, however, to UIC’s credit their hitters stepped up and made timely hits. Junior Jayme Sukowaty came in relief of Herbert and saw much of the same. “Suko” came in and with a runner on gave up a single and then one of UIC’s leading hitters, Steve McGuiggan, homered to left field putting the score at 10-3. We managed to plate one more run off the bat of Sam Sivilotti to end the game with a score of 10-4.

This game was not a result we were looking for, and it also shows how important the first game of a three-game series is. Being able to win the Friday game enables you to have to win one of the two games on Saturday, instead of winning both. However depriving this weekend was we had to remind ourselves it is a long season and we have another opportunity to gain momentum in the next coming days. We packed up and changed into proper bus attire and continued home with the weekend on our minds and the anticipation of our first home games looming. A seven-game homestand is before us and we have alot of work to do to get at where we want to be. We are a very talented bunch and can be dangerous if we believe in ourselves. With the homestand coming, we have an opportunity to relax in the comfort of our own beds instead of those in hotels, enjoy our own meals, as well as wear our ALL WHITE JERSEYS!!! We like to wear those (we were 14-1 last year) in home games. Come out and support us this Tuesday versus UW-Parkside in a double header and this weekend we welcome Cleveland State for a Horizon League series!!