Jesse Talaugon: The end is near...

This past weekend at the Tournament of Champions started off really well. We came in looking, feeling, and acting like the defending Tournament Champions. We were eager to play, wanted to make a statement, and some of us even had personal agendas where we felt we had something to prove. We faced some adversity with our pitching staff while both Sam Lipperd and Jules Martinez were being overwhelmed with illegal pitch calls from just about every single umpire at Pedretti Park. This was the perfect opportunity for our freshman Ciara Becerril to step in the circle and earn her stripes by really coming clutch for us all weekend long and we weren’t the only ones to recognize as she earned All-Tournament Team honors.

Finally for two days straight, we took the first game of the day and this really gave us some much needed momentum for playing multiple games in a day. Another exciting change to our usual game plan was the fact that we were scoring early. In almost every game that we played in which we scored first we were the most successful. It was easy to recognize that it took a great deal of pressure off of our pitchers knowing early on that they had run support.

Losing to the defending National Champions, Hawaii Pacific, was a very bitter end to hard fought weekend. At first, I was very angry because I felt that had our team not been plagued by the umpires, the game would have been much different, but in the same regard we cannot blame them for taking the game away from us because we had plenty of opportunities to make that game ours. Next, I began to get emotional because that was my last appearance ever at the Tournament of Champions and also was feeling that I didn’t really pull my weight and had I done so maybe things would have ended differently. Then, I began to feel optimistic because I truly had felt this team that showed up this weekend was the team that very well could be the Conference Champs, Regional Champs, and who knows…National Champs?

It is really beginning to hit me how near the end of this regular season, which makes the end of my softball career that much closer. As I call family to make sure they are taking time off to attend my Senior day and I attempt to predict how these next few weeks will pan out as far as conference competition goes, I am trying to figure out every way possible to elongate my senior season. I met with the coaches to help tweak some components of my games that I felt were lacking because I didn’t truly grasp how important every opportunity I get is because in a few weeks I might not get anymore and that makes my eyes water at the thought of it.

I am so looking forward to an incredibly long and successful second half of the season and will enjoy every bit of it; the good, the bad, and the ugly but hoping for far more good than bad :)