Mother Nature in North Carolina is "No Joke"

(Written by Tyler Lobe, Sports Information Coordinator at Sonoma State University)

As I sit here in my hotel room in Cary, North Carolina, I stare out my window in awe of the heavy rains and numerous amount of lightning bolts in the area. And the weather changed with the blink of an eye... More on that later.

I have traveled a couple of times with a couple of different sports teams and this trip to the NCAA Division II World Series started out like any other. We arrived on campus early Thursday morning to load our bags and get on the bus to the airport. All seemed normal except that we knew that we would be chartering a plane from Oakland. No one really knew the extent of what that meant, myself included.

As we drove up to the KaiserAir Jet Center, adjacent to Oakland International Airport, the bus pulled right onto the tarmac and parked right next to the plane. The guys were excited and felt as if they were actually part of a Major League team. Once we parked next to the plane, the Sun Country Airline employees took our bags from underneath the bus and loaded them onto the plane. As we waited to board the plane, which was delayed because of weather problems in other parts of the country, the guys took the time to pose for pictures in front of the plane.

We boarded the Boeing 737, a plane with 150+seats, and it comfortably fit our travel party of 37. The coaching staff, our administrators and I sat in the first class seats while the team spread out in the back. Most played cards for the first half of the flight before everyone grabbed a row of seats to themselves to get some sleep. The flight was so laid back that the flight attendants actually sat down in the front of the plane and played cards with Coach Goelz and the rest of the staff. I think I'll stick to chartered flights for the rest of my life. Once spoiled, always spoiled, right?

After a quick 4-1/2 hour flight to Raleigh, we got off the plane and once again, our bus picked us up on the tarmac. The airline employees transferred all of our bags from underneath the plane and right onto our bus. We didn't have to touch our bags from the time we put them on the bus at Sonoma State until we pulled up to our hotel in Cary. After dinner, the team settled into the hotel to get some rest.

I was dreading Friday morning as the NCAA scheduled a mandatory coaches and administrators meeting at 8 a.m. Eastern time. Mind you, our bodies were still on west coast time, meaning we were technically up at 4 a.m. to get ready to go to this meeting. Once the meeting was completed, Coach Goelz, Yvonne Burbank and I returned to the hotel to hang out for another hour. We returned to the field with the team for practice where some of the seniors were handed a Sonoma State flag and was asked to raise it at the entrance to the USA Baseball National Training Complex. Each one of the eight teams participating in the tournament will have a flag flying at the entrance for the duration of the event.

However, just as we got to the field, we were informed that the practice schedule had been halted due to thunderstorms in the area. It would have been an hour or two at the earliest before we would be able to practice, but the weather got worse and we took off for lunch. While at lunch, the sky got very dark, the rain started to fall and the thunder and lightning began to strike. It seemed that the weather turned from nice to nasty in less than an hour.

I returned to my hotel and turned on the television. I stopped on one of the local channels and the local news has interrupted regular programming to breaking news updates on the weather. It was worse than we all thought. Thunderstorm warnings, hail warnings, flash flood warnings all went into effect and the weather system seemed to just stop right above the "Triangle", as the locals like to call the Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham area. (I know...I've learned this as I've been glued to the TV ever since I returned to my room.) Flights in and out of Raleigh-Durham International Airport have been suspended and all of the above warnings remain in effect until tomorrow morning.

Will we play baseball any time soon? Yeah, probably. The field that we are playing on this weekend is built for storms. The USA Baseball National Training Complex is a beautiful complex and the Town of Cary will do everything in their power to get these games in and on time. The forecast for the upcoming week is looking up, and by up, I mean the temperatures. It should get into the 90's and with the humidity, it will be something that the guys will have to get used to.

Nonetheless, the team is ready to play and expect to be flying home next Sunday with a national championship trophy in tow.