March 25
After years of not having a home field to compete on, the coaches decided to make the most of our new baseball field during spring break. So this past break we stayed on campus to practice, improve our skills, and play seven games. After going home for the first four days of spring break to see my parents, eat some home-cooked meals, and recuperate from the first half of the second semester, we were back in Poughkeepsie for the remainder of the break.
We practiced mostly on the turf field for the first few days leading up to our double-header against MIT, as the baseball field was still thawing after the cold winter. And as each day seemed to get progressively warmer, we could sense that baseball season was truly getting underway. But dropping both games to MIT showed us that we still had to shake the rust from the winter and start playing to our potential. As a reminder to play as a team with a never-say-die attitude, we decided to get team Mohawks. It was something the Tampa Bay Devil Rays did last season as they went from worst to first in their division. So we thought we would give it a try as well, at least during spring break, when most of the campus was away and wouldn’t see how ridiculous we looked.
Whether it was the Mohawks or the fact that we started feeding off each other’s intensity, our next game against Mt. St. Mary College featured one of the greatest comebacks I had ever been a part of. Down 10-0 heading into the fourth inning, we clawed our way back in the game by scoring three runs in the bottom of the fourth and four runs in the bottom of the fifth. But just as things started looking up, we surrendered another eight runs over the next two innings and failed to score on the offensive side. Heading into the eighth inning, the score was 18-7. But as the sky darkened in the bottom of the eighth, the hits became contagious. One after another, we crossed home plate, scoring ten runs and cutting the lead to one. After finally recording three outs, we sprinted on to the field to begin the ninth inning, but the umpires convened and called the game on account of darkness, spoiling our epic comeback.
It was disheartening, but we took from the game a sense that no matter how bad things get, we can always come back. It was this attitude that propelled us to our first Liberty League win of the season against Clarkson the next weekend, when we scored the winning run on a walk-off single. But after dropping the next three games to Clarkson, it appears that we will need to conjure up this never-say-die attitude once again.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Opening Day: Outside For the First Time
March 4
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of opening day. It’s a combination of excitement and nervousness that kept me up the night before our season-opening double-header against Swarthmore, tossing and turning in bed for four hours, before I could finally fall asleep. And I wasn’t the only one. When I got on the bus Saturday at 7 am, I learned that the majority of players on the team couldn’t sleep either. Ah, the opening day jitters.
Perhaps contributing to this feeling was that these games marked the first time, because of weather, that we were able to play outside on a baseball field since the fall season ended. Talk about being thrown into the fire. During batting practice and pre-game warm-ups, the infielders tried to get a read on how the ball hops differently off the dirt as opposed to off the hard floor inside the Walker Field House while the outfielders took some of their first reads on fly-balls since the fall. Although at times we were a little rusty in the field, overall it was a good showing considering it was our first time outside. Even though we were used to playing inside, it’s still the same game we’ve been playing all our lives. We turned multiple double-plays at key moments in the games and hauled in some spectacular catches, one of which came from sophomore centerfielder Adam Murphy. Leading the second game by one run, Murphy tracked down a deep shot to the left-centerfield warning track and made an over-the-shoulder, falling catch.
At the start of the season it is expected that pitchers have an advantage over hitters, who haven’t faced real, live pitching outside since the fall. And on Saturday, the safe bet won. Senior pitcher Tyler Bellstrom kept us in the first game, allowing three earned runs over five innings. But we struggled, especially at the top of the order, to produce hits. Senior Zack Miller’s two hits and sophomore Devon Luongo’s three hits were some of the lone bright spots at the plate in the first game.
Our strong pitching continued in the second game, and we were able to pick up the bats as well to produce our first win of the season. In his first college start, freshman John MacGregor mowed down the Swarthmore bats, allowing just one run over during his complete-game outing. Pitching as though he had three years of experience under his belt, MacGregor showed an impressive amount of poise on the mound. At a critical point in the game - with us leading by two runs but with Swarthmore threatening to score with two runners on and the number three-hitter at the plate – MacGregor apparently struck the batter out and we all rushed off the field and into the dugout. But the umpire reversed the call, saying the hitter had foul-tipped the ball, and after a few minutes we were forced back onto the field where a hit surely would have cut the lead and turned momentum to Swarthmore’s side. But MacGregor was able to stay composed and induce a groundout. With our bats coming alive as well in the second game (seven of nine hitters had at least one hit) we grabbed our first win and ended the day with a split.
Personally for me, opening day had a little bit of everything. It was my first time ever playing first base in a non-exhibition game and I was happy with my performance in the field. Opening day also saw my first bloop hit fall between the shortstop, second baseman, and centerfielder and my first time getting picked-off. Even with mistakes and 30-degree weather included, being outside playing a game beats practicing inside any day.
But on Tuesday, after a storm dropped around five inches of snow on Poughkeepsie, we were back indoors. We have just less than two weeks until our home opener against MIT, which falls over spring break, and hopefully, we will be able to practice outdoors before then. Hopefully too, we will all be able to catch up on sleep.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of opening day. It’s a combination of excitement and nervousness that kept me up the night before our season-opening double-header against Swarthmore, tossing and turning in bed for four hours, before I could finally fall asleep. And I wasn’t the only one. When I got on the bus Saturday at 7 am, I learned that the majority of players on the team couldn’t sleep either. Ah, the opening day jitters.
Perhaps contributing to this feeling was that these games marked the first time, because of weather, that we were able to play outside on a baseball field since the fall season ended. Talk about being thrown into the fire. During batting practice and pre-game warm-ups, the infielders tried to get a read on how the ball hops differently off the dirt as opposed to off the hard floor inside the Walker Field House while the outfielders took some of their first reads on fly-balls since the fall. Although at times we were a little rusty in the field, overall it was a good showing considering it was our first time outside. Even though we were used to playing inside, it’s still the same game we’ve been playing all our lives. We turned multiple double-plays at key moments in the games and hauled in some spectacular catches, one of which came from sophomore centerfielder Adam Murphy. Leading the second game by one run, Murphy tracked down a deep shot to the left-centerfield warning track and made an over-the-shoulder, falling catch.
At the start of the season it is expected that pitchers have an advantage over hitters, who haven’t faced real, live pitching outside since the fall. And on Saturday, the safe bet won. Senior pitcher Tyler Bellstrom kept us in the first game, allowing three earned runs over five innings. But we struggled, especially at the top of the order, to produce hits. Senior Zack Miller’s two hits and sophomore Devon Luongo’s three hits were some of the lone bright spots at the plate in the first game.
Our strong pitching continued in the second game, and we were able to pick up the bats as well to produce our first win of the season. In his first college start, freshman John MacGregor mowed down the Swarthmore bats, allowing just one run over during his complete-game outing. Pitching as though he had three years of experience under his belt, MacGregor showed an impressive amount of poise on the mound. At a critical point in the game - with us leading by two runs but with Swarthmore threatening to score with two runners on and the number three-hitter at the plate – MacGregor apparently struck the batter out and we all rushed off the field and into the dugout. But the umpire reversed the call, saying the hitter had foul-tipped the ball, and after a few minutes we were forced back onto the field where a hit surely would have cut the lead and turned momentum to Swarthmore’s side. But MacGregor was able to stay composed and induce a groundout. With our bats coming alive as well in the second game (seven of nine hitters had at least one hit) we grabbed our first win and ended the day with a split.
Personally for me, opening day had a little bit of everything. It was my first time ever playing first base in a non-exhibition game and I was happy with my performance in the field. Opening day also saw my first bloop hit fall between the shortstop, second baseman, and centerfielder and my first time getting picked-off. Even with mistakes and 30-degree weather included, being outside playing a game beats practicing inside any day.
But on Tuesday, after a storm dropped around five inches of snow on Poughkeepsie, we were back indoors. We have just less than two weeks until our home opener against MIT, which falls over spring break, and hopefully, we will be able to practice outdoors before then. Hopefully too, we will all be able to catch up on sleep.
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