Blohowiak is back for his third season of blogging, while Porcaro gets his first go at it. Today is their fourth entry for the 2012 season.
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What’s happening #PantherNation?? Pretty depressing writing this in the California sunshine, knowing we will be heading back to eight inches of snow later on tonight.
We headed out to Cali on Wednesday. Some guys were lucky and flew straight to San Diego, while others had a layover in Kansas City. Fortunately, I flew straight through and arrived in beautiful San Diego at about 5:45 Cali time.
We grabbed our bags, hopped on the bus and headed to the Sheraton Inn. For the second consecutive week, our hotel was very nice. The Sheraton even had Starbucks coffee in each room, which a lot of the guys enjoyed. As soon as we dropped our bags off at the hotel, we immediately took our empty stomachs to Wendy’s and enjoyed a nice dinner.
The guys who were on the layover didn’t arrive to the hotel until about 9:00 Cali time. That night, we all went to bed relatively early because we had an 11:00 a.m. game the next morning vs. San Francisco. Jon Capasso clutched up for the second consecutive week when he hit a walk-off 3-RBI double in the bottom of the ninth to win the game for us.
Our next game wasn’t until 7 p.m. on Friday night, so we had a lot of time to explore San Diego. A lot of guys and their families went to downtown San Diego Thursday night. On Friday, some of us went down to the ocean and also took a tour of the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier. That night we took on the San Diego State Aztecs.
After getting off to a slow start in the first couple of innings, Cale Tassi settled down and threw another nice game. Our bats were alive all game. We were facing a hard throwing righty, but our at-bats were competitive and aggressive all night. We took a lead going into the eighth inning, but we hit a speed bump and ended up losing 7-4. It was a tough loss because we felt like we played a really good game. We just didn’t close it out.
The next day versus Cal Poly, we came out flat and couldn’t bounce back after being down 4-0. That night, some guys enjoyed their last opportunity to experience San Diego while others had to work on homework. Doing homework on a road trip is not fun, but then again when is homework fun?
We wrapped up the weekend with a game against San Diego the next morning. Mike Schneider threw an absolute gem. He was dicing. But in the seventh, San Diego’s first baseman took a pitch up in the zone over the fence to give them the lead. Mike threw a great game and made just one mistake. Unfortunately, we didn’t give him the run support he deserved.
We let a few games get away this weekend, but we also learned a lot. The starting pitching was great again and our bats showed some positive signs. Now it’s time to put it all together.
I’m going to wrap this up and dish it to Blow so I can do some more homework. Thanks for the support this weekend nation!
Paco Thoughts ... Shout out to Flip for the food and making the trip this weekend ... Shout out to the kid in the San Diego airport who tipped Mike Goetz for playing his guitar ... San Diego weather is unreal ... Congrats to Kyle Spurley and his Tar Heels for beating Duke this weekend (it hurts to type that).
That’s all I got, here’s Blow...
First things first, check out the picture above, isn’t that just studly? If you guys don’t know who that is, its my fellow blogger, Mike Porcaro.
This California trip was pretty breathtaking, especially for someone (myself) who has never been to that part of California. I am convinced that there is no where else in the United States that can showcase that kind of weather on a daily basis. Feeling the heat from the sun in San Diego was unmatched, playing in that sun versus some high-quality opponents is indescribable.
We had a great weekend, even though our record didn’t reflect that. Every facet of our team was tested this weekend from starting pitching, small ball, defense, to bullpen pitching. We had situations where we had to make clutch pitches where we flourished. Situations where we had to get clutch hits and make clutch plays that we also succeeded at. We have a lot to hold our heads high going into next weekend at UALR but that doesn’t make the losses any easier to swallow.
Losing has got to be the worst feeling someone can feel. Such an empty feeling and to anyone competitive a feeling that is never welcomed. I can guarantee you that our team is ultra-competitive and this past weekend is weighing heavily into our practices and workouts this week. We were not satisfied with winning one game and being “in” every other one versus these west coast teams, we want to win every game. We expect to put forth an immense amount of effort and hopefully that translates into a win.
California was a great opportunity to play against opponents we can expect to face in a regional. Gaining valuable experience against these opponents is imperative for us moving forward. We know what it takes to win those games, and more importantly, we have what it takes.
We had a lot of fun in California, from roaming the mall, to playing some dibble dabble in the pool. The weather was amazing, it was great playing in the weather, and it was an overall nice weekend. The only thing missing was the result we wanted, but if we continue getting better day by day we will see the results we desire without pressing the issue, but by just being us.
Quick thoughts by Blow
Our starting pitching has been lights out to begin the year, Eric Semmelhack, Cale Tassi, Mike Schneider, and Justin Jaquish will have us in every single game this year ... check out this article about Cale ... speaks volumes of his character.
CLICK HERE
Congrats to the Seniors on the Men’s and Womens Basketball teams on their careers here at UWM! I can’t wait for retired Volleyball player Kerri Schuh to snap photos of our squad during our games at The Hank ... I'm expecting at least 800 photos each game! The Fresno State Softball team is kind of ridiculous ... not a bad thing but they said they really never watched softball while in high school ... like ... I knew who Taryrne Mowatt was and they didn’t? Cray .... our team has definite #CaliSwag and it starts with Kyle “Sasha Vujacic” Spurley ... ahhh off to Arkansas we go! Everyone please remember to Gametrack it or whatever is necessary to see us play!
Last thought: Tom King is a boss ... I hear nothing but good things about the father of RS Freshmen Eric King .. like just look at this picture (below) (Eric in the middle row middle and Tom at the top right). What a beautiful family!
See ya’ll next week!
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