Blohowiak is back for his third season of blogging, while Porcaro gets his first go at it. Today is their eighth entry for the 2012 season.
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The Hank was rockin’ this weekend! It sure was nice to play in front of Panther Nation for the first time this year! Thanks to everyone who came out and battled the cold weather with us. Your presence was felt!
After last weekend's disappointing performance, it was a great feeling to bounce back and take a series from a rival in UIC. Game one couldn’t have been more frustrating. Eric Semmelhack was fantastic all game. He tied the school record with 13 strikeouts and gave up just two hits in 8.0 innings. We had just one strikeout and six hits. But, the one thing we forgot to do was score runs. I feel terrible for Semmel because he pitched his butt off and we couldn’t give him any run support. He did not deserve to take that loss. That loss is on the hitters, without a doubt.
Fortunately, the bats did come around in the next two games. Cale Tassi was excellent once again in game two and the bullpen came up big in game three. The last two games of the series just show what we are capable of doing when we put it all together. I’m not saying we played our best ball, I’m just saying we did well in all three phases of the game and that resulted in some nice wins. We pitched well, had timely hitting, and played solid defense. That resulted in a 7-1 win and a 7-3 win.
We have another big week ahead of us. Four games in four days starting Wednesday vs. Cardinal Stritch followed by a three game series with Butler. All games start at 3 p.m. except for Saturday’s game which begins at 1 p.m. Hope to see Panther Nation there!
It is now time for me to continue introducing the team. This week we move to some of the outfielders.
This is me, back in high school, tagging out Jon Capasso trying to steal second. As you can see from the picture, Jon was upset with the call. Shout out to my brother for the throw down. Jon is a junior and a member of the Mustard House. He’s from Racine, Wis., AKA “The Cilla” where he attended Horlick High School. He was high school teammates with current UWM Panther Drew Pearson. The combination of those two in the middle of the order was compared to the likes of Braun and Fielder. Getting Jon out was a tough task for opposing pitchers, to say the least. According to one Racine area scout, Jon only hit into 10 outs his senior year. Not only could he hit, he could pitch too. Many people don’t know but his side arm delivery helped him throw a perfect game his senior year against rival Park. 
Look at this stud, haha. This is Derek Peake, a sophomore centerfielder. Peake idolizes Mark Wahlberg. He once ordered a collection of Mark Wahlberg posters off of ebay so he could put them up on his wall. Before he goes to bed he likes to watch the "Good Vibrations" music video by Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch. Peake likes to relive his glory days at Catholic Memorial High School (MEMORIAL!!!) where he was a standout cornerback/kicker on the football team and a state champion in basketball. He almost decided to play football in college but at the last minute chose to take his talents to UWM to play baseball. Hit him up on twitter @peake_a_leake7
This is sophomore Ryan Solberg. Sweet haircut, eh? Ryan was a 5-star athlete coming out of Waukesha West High School. He was a standout in volleyball, basketball and baseball. He enjoys spending his free time in the Klotsche Center practicing dunking. If you are looking for Solberg five minutes before the game, chances are he is probably at the concession stand getting food. The kid loves to eat. If we have to rush from class to practice, Solberg always makes sure he has time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the road. He is a big consumer of cereal. I’ve never seen one person consume so much cereal. He literally goes through a box a day. It’s impressive.
If you looked up "swag" in the dictionary, this picture would be right next to it. At least that’s what senior Mark Strey would tell you. Strey guy has an alter ego named Rambo, arguably his primary ego. If I could describe Rambo, I would describe him as someone whose 'swag button' is broke and can’t be turned off. Rambo unveiled himself at the end of the year last year with his swagged out quotes in huddles and pregame antics. Swagger is his lifestyle. Mark, on the other hand, is a laid back guy who enjoys long walks on the beach and seafood dinners with his girlfriend Elizabeth. You can find Mark in a different New Era hat and a different pair of Oakley sunglasses every day. I guess some of Rambo’s swagger rubs off on Mark.Ahh man these intros are too fun. Shout out to Tell Taylor for the help on writing a few of these. Next week I’ll introduce the rest of the outfielders.
Paco Thoughts… Opening Day for the Brewers is Friday! I like the way the team looks, wouldn’t be surprised to see them win the division again… Matt Cain is not worth the extension he received… The dude doesn’t even have a .500 career record… Unbelievable. This weekend I realized I don’t like the sight of blood, especially if it’s my own.
I’m done. Here’s Blow…
The Hank was for sure rockin’ this past weekend. It certainly helps when we play some quality baseball for the fans to cheer for. We appreciate the support from all of you from the Panther Lounge to the standing room on the fences. Thank you for the support from our fellow student athletes as well as other students, led by the ever enthusiastic Jayoh.
With that being said we played fairly well this weekend, well enough to earn a sweep, however, baseball just doesn’t work that way. The way our team hit the ball in the second and third games of the series is a very pleasant sign of things to come hopefully. Guys are looking much more comfortable at the plate which is the only way to really approach hitting. We all are very optimistic that our darker days of team baseball are behind us as we have a renewed sense of ourselves on the field.
This week is a challenge, both physically and mentally. Four games in four days sounds like a little league tournament. Being able to take care of our bodies as well as our mindset is important during this week. Butler is a very good team, who always plays us tough, and we have a great opportunity to force ourselves in the upper third of the conference. We cannot overlook Stritch either, this game gives us a good opportunity to continue playing good team baseball. Most of you won’t read this until we are a game or two into this weekend either, hopefully we are undefeated as well.
Gonna jump into some introductions right now, this week the pitchers will be starters Eric Semmelhack and Mike Schneider.
Eric is really good at either not taking embarrassing pictures OR making sure they are not put up on Facebook because this is the weirdest one I could find, disappointing right? I’m not quite sure what’s going on in this picture. Eric is questioning the Powerade Zeros’ motives while Mitch Ghelfi is modeling stellar sunglasses. Oh yea, and Justin Jaquish is just hanging around looking like a predator with a neck beard. Eric has been around for three years and has given the Panthers a good number of quality starts. He is a pretty good pitcher but where he really excels is subtle humor. Every week he finds a different reason to quit the team (jokingly of course). Whether it be from not wanting to field double-play balls or not wanting to do dry drills for an hour. This is all in good fun as he and pitching coach Cory Bigler have a good rapport in that sense. I remember in the winter this year he handed in a “2 weeks notice” which was accepted fruitfully, ha. Eric is an Oak Creek alum, who I am taught to hate because some of my family attended Franklin. He is a great fisherman who occasionally finds a way to get his line caught underneath the boat. (a little inside? probably). We enjoy having Semmel around and we look forward to where his future takes him.
The guy to the left here is Mike Schneider, co-owner or Schneider National. Actually he’s not, but I can guarantee that he was asked that by almost everyone when he first got here last year. He is a West De Pere alumni, which you can kind of see their colors (orange and black) on his body. Being from the same area as him (Green Bay) I’ve had the pleasure of riding back with him during some weekends, no radio of course. I learned a lot about him, most notably that he is a deer assassin. From what I remember he is a real aficionado with a bow. Coming from a non-hunting background, I was intrigued by all his hunting stories, even the parts about the “gutting” of them. This picture captures Mike in a nutshell. Very happy with a lot of school spirit, with a side of crazy. His crazy side comes out on the diamond for sure, he has a high motor on the mound and when its go time, its go time. His competitiveness on the mound is very apparent and awesome, as his changeup strikes yet another batter out he faces third waiting for the ball expecting the same after the next batter. As a starter you are entitled a few things, one of them being you are able to do your workouts at home, in De Pere. There was a bit of miscommunication and he found himself doing a workout in De Pere this season while we were all wondering where he was during practice. Worries of him being in an accident ever present, it was found out later that he was given the OK to workout at home (his home in Milwaukee as assumed, however it was actually De Pere) and we have ran with it ever since.
That's it for this week of intros, next week I’m not sure who I’ll introduce but as always I’ll do my best to introduce them in the correct fashion.
Quick thoughts from Blow
The inquiries about shoutouts form the parents is quite overwhelming, but I promise to all of you you will be presented on this blog. I am going to dedicate a whole entire post just to the wonderful family and friends.....The Hunger Games is a great movie and an even better book...for what it’s worth I recommend reading and seeing it, and then the next two books of the trilogy..Brewers are going to be a 90+ win team this year, take that to the bank....If the Packers sign Dave Tollefson they could easily go undefeated, I’m not a big fan of Anthony Hargrove but he will be formidable as well....Don’t worry Zills, that picture I have is definitely going to get showcased very very soon....some of these reality TV shows are outrageous...I’m done for now...see ya next week!
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