They are back for their second go around and today is their fourth entry.
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Pump the brakes...
Another weekend for baseball and yet another tiring travel schedule. Boy oh boy, was Wednesday morning a riot. First of all, I was very happy to only have two days to dedicate to classes this past week. Second of all, it is, however, a very good way to get a little behind in a couple of classes. Oh well.
Wednesday started off as horribly as it could have, with a ton of snow. The snowflakes were literally the size of golf balls as we drove to the Klotsche Center to pack our bags in the bus that would pick us up at the College Avenue park and ride. Alas, there was no bus scheduled (or it just didn’t show up) to pick us up and eventually bring us to the airport. This seemed to be a problem, and if you knew anything about us you’d know we were clowning about it the whole time asking if we had to take cabs or hop on the city bus. Nonetheless, we have a good amount of guys who drive to the park and ride themselves, so getting the majority of us there was not the issue. It was getting the 30+ guys from the park and ride to the airport that was the issue. We had people dropping off others at the airport then turning around to pick up some more and eventually our assistant head coach Cory Bigler grabbed a UWM van to transport about 15 guys and all their bags to the airport.
Amid this cluster of testosterone and morning breath was the feeling of excitement and anxiety as well knowing we are headed to beautiful California but would have to hurdle the most debilitating obstacle of them all, the airport.
If you think getting 35 guys to the airport in a snowstorm was miserable, imagine getting 35 guys checked into a flight, getting their bags tagged and getting them all through security by the time our flight left at 9:40. My expectations were low for Airtran, based on all the horror stories one can hear about an airport. However, they really did a very good job at accommodating us. They had us check in and baggage stowed in the matter of 15 minutes, and since it was already 8:45 we really needed to high tail it through security. Turning the corner towards our gate and seeing the LONG line for the security checkpoint was not the best sight ever. To make a long story short, we made it through in time, barely, and we boarded the plane.
While in route to California we hit some minor bumps in the air and before we knew it we had landed. I have never been to Cali before and let me tell you, I could live there. It only took me about five minutes of being outside to decide that 65 and sunny was right for me (especially after what we’ve seen this winter). We landed in San Francisco, but our hotel was in San Jose, a 40 minute commute. We arrived in San Jose and drove through the downtown area anticipating our destination. We passed several very large and elegant hotels and thought “could it be” (Hangover reference) but to much of our avail we landed a much smaller, nice hotel in the Ramada. This place was about seven blocks away from the heart of downtown but had some eateries within walking distance, no one was going to complain since it was sunny and warm, we’ll walk anywhere in that.
We settled in around 1 pm and some of us decided to walk about the town, get some food, or what not. I went to a nice little diner that is comparable to a Big Boy. My roommate, Kyle Spurley, and I then trekked back to the hotel and continued on to pass out for a good four hours.
I’ll fast forward to the morning on Thursday where we ate some pretty plentiful continental breakfast, not to mention freshmen Ryan Solberg consumed half his body weight in waffles. We were leaving to go to the field at 3:15 so we had from 10 until then to do what we wanted, whether it was go for a walk to campus, or relax, we had some time to kill. I would love to continue on writing, however, I’m going to cut it short and somewhat give Sivvy a nice assignment for the rest. Exams and homework will catch up with ya in the whole scheme of things.
Really Quick Quick Thoughts ... San Jose is very nice, however I wouldn’t recommend that as a destination for a family vacation .... a 106-flavor soda machine must be brought to Milwaukee ... as does a Baja burrito Mexican food place thingy ... Kyle Spurley is the worst at MLB The Show 11 ... Gunnar Eastman needs to learn how to shuffle and deal cards quicker ... the UWM Union MUST get a Jamba Juice ... yummmmmmmmm ... Lastly, airport security is soooo annoying, and you can ask Josh Uhen about that, but it’s completely necessary. Thanks TSA for doing a great job at keeping us safe!
Here’s Siv..
Rejuvenated, and rested, I finally am able to collect my thoughts. Another disappointing weekend on the diamond side of things but a good experience for us all. Thursday evening we took on San Jose State. They came in as the #30 team in the country and basically took it to us. Offensively we were OK, but defensively and pitching the baseball was a let down. That message was reinforced after the game. We need to do a better job of playing all three phases of the game.
Ironically, the next day we came out and took a completely different approach against UC Davis. It started off in the morning, when we went on a nice 30 minute team jog around downtown San Jose. Surprisingly, to me at least, I wasn’t aware that San Jose had around 1 million people in the surrounding area. Huge city. Not what I was expecting at all. As we were running, I had the pleasure of sharing the jog with Coach Bigler and Chad Pierce. Running is never fun whether its for conditioning purposes or just to get a little jog in. Fortunately, with the sense of humor that Coach Bigler has and the collaboration of Pierce and myself throwing a few one-liners in there, the jog was actually quite pleasant. I also think its important to note that the “scenery” around San Jose is NOT bad at all either, which helps open your eyes to things a person might not always see, hahaha, which should be taken as a compliment to all the women out there!
On the baseball side of things, Jordan Guth did a great job keeping us in the game but we just couldn’t get our sticks going. UC Davis brought out a lefty throwing 84 mph, but had a very good mix of pitches. We just couldn’t seem to get anything going as his changeup basically kept us off balance all night. UC Davis was a solid team but were not overly impressive. On the other side, you have to tip your cap because they did nothing to beat themselves. They made all the routine plays and commanded the zone on the pitching side of things. One day it’s the pitching, the next day it’s the hitting. Right now we simply aren’t doing enough to deserve the breaks that other teams are getting.
Following the game against Davis, we went back to the hotel and basically sat around and reevaluated our season at that point. Mentally we needed to check ourselves and come out the next day and play good fundamental baseball against Santa Clara. Outside of our first trip to Tennessee, I’d say that our game against Santa Clara was our most complete game of the year. Chad Pierce gave us his best start of the year while throwing through an impingement in his right shoulder. He straight battled for us and had a “no hitter” through four-plus innings. Defensively, Sam Koenig made a number of great plays at third base that helped save and eliminate the potential for a few big innings for Santa Clara. We were having fun! Kids out there diving around in the dirt, beautiful weather, we were winning, it just seemed like our confidence was at its highest.
Offensively, we were only able to muster a couple of runs, but it was more than enough as we shut out Santa Clara and played a great all around the game. The weekend was looking half decent as we now had a chance to leave California with at least a split.
Unfortunately, Sunday was another disappointment. As we take a step forward, it's two steps backward. We need to hit the ground running and not stop. San Jose came out and put up a few runs in the first inning and the tempo was set. They continued to pile on a few more as the game went on and the offensive surge just couldn’t keep pace as we were playing from behind. They ended up going on to winning the game and closing the door on the opportunity to leave Cali with a split. At the conclusion of the game, our team meeting only provided more fireworks as we were informed of our 6:30 am conditioning session on Tuesday morning when we got home. NO FUN whatsoever.
Following the game, a former player of ours, Jeff Gordon, invited our entire team to some fine dining. Gordon’s father is an investor in a restaurant in Campbell, Calif. (a town next to San Jose), and we were gladly willing to chow on some fine dining. The food was excellent. The restaurant even had touch screen soda machines that had over 100 different flavors of soda. The coolest soda machine any of us had ever seen. The food was great, the atmosphere was fun, and we were able to relax and actually enjoy the trip a little bit more. A big thanks goes out to Jeff! Back to Milwaukee it was around 12:00 pm Pacific time (the team at the airport pictured). The plane was a little, typical way to end a weekend after losing three of four, and we did not reach Milwaukee until about 6:30 am local time. A long weekend finally came to an end. This weekend we had to Athens, Ohio to take on Ohio University. A four game set is slated for the weekend. Continue to follow us and continue to support us. “Its not where you start the year but where you finish it.”
Thanks for following, and keep checking in for more!
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