Coach Ziemer's Update From Europe

Coach Ziemer and his Seawolves are spending two weeks in Europe to train before the 2011 season begins. The trip is also an opportunity for team members and coaches to learn about the rich cultural heritage of Holland, Belgium, and Germany. Coach Ziemer was kind enough to send us his journal entries from the first part of the trip...

Friday, July 29

This has been quite the tour! It seems like we haven't stopped moving since we got here. We arrived in Amsterdam on the morning of Friday, July 29. Our tour coordinator, Jay Van Veelen, met us at the airport and took the players and coaches back to the hotel. We are staying in Scheviningen, which is a beach town on the outskirts of Den Hague (The Hague), Holland. Our place is called The Skotel and it a hotel school that is closed for the summer so they rent out the dorms. It is in a great location and it is very reasonably priced, which is very important, especially with the weak dollar against the Euro! Basically 10 dollars will buy you 7 Euros, so everything is really expensive for us. The Skotel is also the same place that we stayed with the team in 2006 on our last Euro tour.

The first day we got settled in and then went to Escamp, a local soccer club and trained to loosen up and get the travel out of our legs. After training, we took the tram into downtown Den Haag and went to dinner. Afterwards we gave everyone a curfew and let them walk around down town before returning home on the tram. They key to surviving in Europe is to get on their sleeping patterns. We left SFO at 2:00pm and arrived in Amsterdam at 9:30am, but for us it was actually 12:30am, so everybody was tired. We didn't let anyone nap all day and they couldn't go to sleep before 10:00pm. We made it and went to bed and most of us were able to get to sleep.

Saturday, July 30

We woke up on Saturday and had breakfast in the hotel and then went to Escamp to train. We had a really sharp training because we had to prepare for games the following day. Although the guys were still a little jet lagged, the energy was good and everyone was in good spirits. The original plan was to go on a quick bike tour of Den Haag, but it started raining a bit and we had been going non-stop since we had arrived so we gave everyone a couple of hours of free time to get their lay of the land. We met in the lobby and piled into our four mini vans and drove to Breda for a friendly game between NAC Breda and Olympiacos, from Greece. We went to downtown Breda and had dinner before heading to the Rat Verlegh Stadium, where they play. It is a perfect soccer stadium and although there were only about 10,000 people at the game, it was very loud and the atmosphere was lively. The game was a little slow, with NAC Breda keeping the ball well, but not creating many chances. Olympiacos played a bit on the counter and went ahead 1-0. The game crept along until NAC subbed in Alex Schalk, a local product who led the Erie Divisie U19 age league in scoring the previous year and was sought after by several domestic and foreign clubs, Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen. He grew up in Breda and always wanted to play for the first team, so he stayed, but I am sure that we will hear from him again. Anyway, within minutes of subbing in, he scored a goal to tie it up and then then he scored the game winner with five minutes to go and the Breda fans went home happy. It is no secret that we play a Dutch Style of soccer with a 1-4-3-3, building up from the back and playing a possession game with wingers so it was great for our players to see NAC Breda play the same way. On the way back to the Skotel after the gam,e the players and coaches in each of the vans were talking about what we each noticed. It was a great learning experience and it will continue for the entire trip.

Sunday, July 31

Game day! We woke up and had breakfast at the Skotel and then headed to Quick den Haag, a local amateur club that has strong ties to Sonoma State Soccer. Beginning with Chirs Carniato living in Holland in the early 90's and attending the KNVB coaching school, many players played at Quick den Haag including Andrew Ziemer, Jeremy Sweet, Brett Cook, Mason Hill-Harrill, Carl Edwards, Eric Parish, Ross Middlemiss, Brandon Deshazier and former assistant coach Ian Mork. A good friend of ours, Pieter Fischer is our contact at Quick and we always feel very welcome there. We played two Quick teams and in the first game we started slow, going down 0-3 before we woke up and created a lot of chances. We didn't capitalize until the 80th minute when Brandon dela Cruz scored a nice goal and then Aaron Glover scored to make it 2-3 and we pressed for the equalizer. We though that we had it, but the linesman called offside and the game ended with a 3-2 loss. After 15 minutes we played well and if we had finished our chances we could have won by several goals.

In the second game we played very well and also created more chances than Quick. The game was back and forth and it looked like a heartbreaker when they scored with 5 minutes left, but Nico Spann scored shortly after, so the game ended up with a fair 1-1 draw. I was really happy with the way that we played, especially in the buildup and possession in the defensive and midfield thirds. In both games we need to be sharper in the attacking third, but we will continue to work on that.

After the game, they hosted a BBQ for us and we enjoyed a meal of steak, coleslaw, and potatoes with a nice dessert of ice cream, fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Each of the clubs over in Holland have a stadium field, several training fields and locker rooms and a club house with a restaurant and canteen. The players and coaches from both teams were able to hang out and talk before, during, and after dinner and it was a great way to learn about other cultures. In Holland everyone speaks English so it was easy for everyone to socialize. It is funny, but if you ask someone in Holland if they speak English, they will actually say "of course"". It makes you feel kind of stupid for asking and I usually don't, I just ask the question in English and they answer!

After the game we returned to the Skotel and went to the beach for a mandatory session in the North Sea. The water is a little cold, but not nearly as cold as Bodega Bay! We made the players stay in for 15 minutes and the waves weren't bad so we 't actually had a good team body surfing contest. That evening we finally had some free time and we let the players walk around and eat dinner on their own.

Monday, August 1

On Monday, we trained at Escamp again and the players were pretty sore, but we got them loosened up and worked on finishing, hoping to improve on our poor shot to goal ratio from our first two games. After the training we showered and headed to Amsterdam to visit Toekomst, the home of Ajax FC, the top team in Holland. The training grounds are impressive with 8 fields (some turf and some grass) and a club house and canteen that looks over the training fields. We got a quick picture and saw Mike Massewinkle, a goalkeeper coach at Ajax that has come over a few times to work the SSU/Hoek Camp in the summer. He was excited to see us and we made plans to visit him again.

We parked the vans under the Ajax Arena and headed to Amsterdam on the train. We arrived at Central Station, gave the players some rules and a meeting time and everyone headed out for some sight seeing. Amsterdam is a beautiful city with the canals and old buildings and it a great walking city because it is so flat. Of course everyone knows about the red light district, but there is much more than that. The coaches didn't stop walking for four hours as we hit the Leidseplein, Rembrantplein, walked by the Van Gogh museum before circling back and walking through the red light district. It was day time so a lot of the curtains on the windows were closed, but it is still a must see for anyone visiting for the first time. We obviously have nothing like it and it is interesting to walk through and see a different culture at work. We met at 8:00pm and headed back to Den Haag. As expected, all of the players had worked their way through the red light and everyone had funny stories and experiences. Everyone fell asleep on the vans on the way home (except the coaches who were driving!) and we pulled into the Skotel and headed to bed.

We are getting ready to head to a game so I need to end here. I'm sorry that I am behind in the blog, but the schedule has been extremely hectic. We are at the Skotel for an hour or two here and there, but I have been shopping at the super market for lunch and some dinners to save money so it seems like I never have a moment. I will get caught up so that you can experience our trip with just a slight delay. The players are having a blast and learning a lot. As always, I have scheduled too much (games, watching professional teams train, Van der Sar's testimonial game and more!), but I figure that this is a once in a lifetime experience so we are going for it!

The Highest of Highs...and the Lowest of Lows

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

Well, I didn't expect to be the only one contributing to this blog, so I apologize for the lack of posts during this trip to North Carolina.

Don't worry, I'll make up for it.

Well, where do I start? Between my last post (Friday) and now (1 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday)... Wow, okay, that's quite a while. This post goes out to you, Brad Byrne.

Again, I apologize. Being that it IS in the wee hours here in North Carolina, please forgive my scattered mind, especially after that heartbreak of a game a couple of hours earlier.

I'll start off with Saturday's uplifting clinic that the team ran for the Boys Club of Wake County here in Raleigh. About 30 boys, anywhere from age 5 to age 13, came running from all directions as soon as our team bus arrived in the parking lot. The Boys Club had been ravaged by a tornado just a few weeks prior and the roof was clearly under reconstruction. It seemed that having the Sonoma State baseball team there to lead the boys in a quick, two-hour clinic, it was a breath of fresh air for the Boys Club. As the morning went on, you could tell that everyone involved started enjoying themselves as everyone began feeling comfortable. Coach Goelz was handing out packs of baseball cards to the kids as they worked through different stations and he also handed out SSU t-shirts and free tickets to Sunday's game to the parents in attendance. By the end of the clinic, everyone had a smile on their faces and the kids' new favorite baseball team was the Sonoma State Seawolves.

It was then off to practice at the field, something the team hadn't done the day before because of the inclement weather (inclement is a nice way of putting it, you know if you read my previous blog). As a former baseball player, turned manager by my senior year of high school, to a Sports Information...Specialist, I wanted to put on the glove and roam the outfield during BP. Now, nothing against my fellow sports information colleagues, but most of them aren't the most athletic people around. Therefore, you could imagine the surprise on half of the players and coaches faces that I could actually catch a fly ball and look athletic doing so. Myself included since I hadn't taken fly balls in...who knows. What a blast, though, to just hang out amongst the guys that I hadn't really gotten to know until this week, even though I have covered them all season long.

Yada yada yada, practice finished, we did dinner, bed time, WAH-LAH (or how ever it's technically spelled), it's Sunday and we're about to snap Grand Valley State's 32-game win streak...but not before eight or nine heart attacks. I'm not sure how you all (or ya'll) felt at home watching it on the broadcast, but in person, it was 10x or 12x worse. Don't ask how I came up with the logic on that math (we're pushing 2 a.m. Eastern time right now).

O'Koyea's home run to tie the game up in the bottom of the ninth inning was a "no doubt about it" ball. The Grand Valley State SID (which is short for sports information director), immediately dropped his head and, of course, I had to bottle my emotions as there is a strict "no cheering" policy in the press box. Any press box for that matter. I knew from that point on, we were going to win this game. The Lakers wanted to take a lead in the 11th inning, putting runners in scoring position, but Bordagaray did his job to get out of the inning, allowing Alex Todd to hit his line drive single to right field in the bottom of the 11th, scoring "Flip" from second base. The SSU dugout erupted into a frenzy, along with the group of Seawolf fans in the stands, celebrating the fall of the No. 1 team in the nation. What an unbelievable feeling it was to be a part of something that great. The adrenaline was pumping, the team was in high spirits, and it was only one win.

(I might add that everyone working this tournament is surprised at the following by Sonoma State fans, making the cross country trip for this event. I'm not surprised one bit, however, we've had a great following all season long. Thanks to everyone who has, and is, supporting the guys.)

By the way, I extend a sincere apology to Alex Todd for initially writing that he won the game on a bloop single, when in fact it was a line drive to right field that got underneath the glove of the sliding right fielder. I'm not going to make excuses for myself, but I was worried about photographing the dugout's celebration and did not see the actual hit. My bad.

"Can I get a bloop single?!" as heard by Alex has he passed by me on the bus later that night.

Got it.

Anyway, we all got to sleep in on Monday and then was treated to a Durham Bulls game later in the evening.

(Side note: thanks to our Associate Athletic Director, Yvonne Burbank, for helping to set the food and entertainment up for the week. Huge kudos, especially when you gotta walk into a sandwich place and make 40 different sandwich orders, all with specific requests. The place eventually ran out of bread, but Subway saved the day.)

It was a great opportunity for the guys to go watch the Triple-A Bulls team (an affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays) face the AAA affiliate for the Cleveland Indians. However, the temperature was in the 90's still and the humidity made it worse, forcing half of the team to leave early. The rest of us left in the eighth inning after the hometown team took a lead on a three-run home run that was hit at least 450 feet. Come to find out, the home run was hit off a guy that I faced in little league back in Washington State...small world.

So, after the win over the top team in the nation just a couple of days prior, coupled with an off day on Monday, the Seawolves were ready to face West Florida. BUT, before we could take it seriously, we had to celebrate the birthday of head coach John Goelz (and who would want to lose on the head coach's birthday?)...Yeah, the title of this post is now becoming clearer, right?

We had so many chances to keep West Florida from scoring and we had so many chances to take the lead. You could look at the double play that occurred just before O'Koyea hit the double, which was six inches from the top of the wall. In my opinion, it should have left the yard, but the humidity in the air on Tuesday night was so thick, I'm pretty sure that's what prevented the ball from going over the wall.

You could look at the six runners left on base in the final three innings, including the bases loaded situation with just one out in the top of the ninth and the No. 4 and 5 hitters at the plate.

You could look at other things too, but quite frankly, it's now 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time and this guy is exhausted. To make a long story short, as a spectator, the game of baseball -- and sports in general -- is so frustrating.

Coach Goelz was quoted in the post-game press conference as saying "If I could have that situation again, bases loaded with those two particular players up to bat, nine times out of ten, we would win that game. Those guys are hard working guys, reliable guys, I know they are disappointed. They are good situational hitters, but (West Florida's) pitchers did a great job."

Thomas Lee said it best in that same post-game press conference: "It was a tough loss, but we've bounced back before. We bounced back in the regional tournament after our loss (to Cal Poly Pomona) and we have to play one inning, one pitch at a time like we have all season."

HIGH: We snapped No. 1 Grand Valley State's 32-game win streak on Sunday,
LOW: Down 5-4 with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth and one out, we couldn't score anyone on Tuesday.

All within two days.

The beauty of sports.

Goelz finished Tuesday night's interviews by saying: "We are just excited to be here (at the CWS). We expect to play our best. Our players are going to play with a lot of enthusiasm and, win or lose, we are going to give it our best shot and I think our best shot is pretty good, so someone is going to have to beat us."

I would have to say that by watching this team, who was humiliated at the CCAA tournament a couple of a weeks ago, has a lot to prove...and they aren't done yet.

The best is yet to come.

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.

Jesse Talaugon: We're In It.

Being completely honest, after our series against Monterey Bay and having two heartbreaker losses in the seventh inning, not performing to our potential, and being honored for the first time thus far as being one of the five seniors on the team, I think everything really started to hit me and soon after my mini breakdown had begun.

While the team was mingling, I headed to the van and loaded my stuff up, perched myself in the back left corner, with no iPod because it was dead and just empty space to think and feel. I had felt like my season may or may not be slipping away from me, that my career is coming to an end and it may happen much sooner than I had anticipated and hoped, but worst of all, that I was allowing it to happen by not contributing enough and stepping up in situations that would better set us up for success. Tried to fight back some of the tears, but it was inevitable and they weren’t really tears of sadness, but just so many mixed emotions because of how bad I want this, how much I love what I do, and how close we are to capturing it all and letting it all go at the same exact time.

I couldn’t sit and lament about this for all that long though because the three biggest series we were about to embark upon were happening in the next two days because of having to make up our four game series with Chico State. It was made very clear to the team that we were a little bit down but most definitely not out, we had the opportunity to bounce back in a big way against (at the time) the number two team in conference standings, Chico State. That Monday morning we decided to come ten minutes earlier into the locker room because we figured it might take us a little more time to get into softball mode since it was pretty irregular for us to be playing in that sort of time frame.

First, our opponents pull into the loading dock as I am walking to the locker room with music blasting. Next, as we are already in the locker room they stroll in and start to get ready as well. All of this was on top of the already lengthy discussions about when we would make up these games so that they were best prepared despite the inconvenience it played for our team. These things were bothersome to me than it would or even should be to anyone but it made me want these games that much more. I truly felt that Chico thought they were going to take four from us, that these games were going to be cake and that our performance would have been similar to our past games played against each other this past season. They could not have been more wrong and out of this entire season so far and all the games we have played there were no four games that I personally wanted more than our four game series against Chico. It was made very clear to our team that we owed them our best and that with our best we could not fail.

We came out on top swept the first two games of the series and after that first day filled with momentum, I was sure we were going to sweep and send a big message to our conference that we were not to be counted out and the only reason Chico State and UC San Diego were the top two teams was because they had yet to face Sonoma State. We won the first game on Tuesday, our offense had been really productive and consistent one through nine, but in the second game of the day mindless errors and sub-par defense plagued our chance at a sweep. Coach had mentioned that she was unsure if we had all truly wanted four games and that it looked like we had settled for three wins and were content with that because deep down we weren’t really sure if we were going to get that.

The sense of complacency was felt throughout and I knew something had to change and fast because once again within the next two days we were headed down to San Diego for another huge series, one that would put us in the running for first place in conference.

Prior to flying out to sunny San Diego, we had a sports psychology meeting with Carrie Cheadle where we got a little bit off topic as far as what she had on the agenda for us, but brought up some much needed discussion about the desire that we as a team have, but more importantly, as individuals and self checking to see if each and every one of us was embracing our roles and giving 100% of absolutely everything they have to contribute to this team's success. In this discussion we brought up the need to call each other out when we recognize someone is not performing to their potential in addition to being able to receive that criticism and feeding off of it and being thankful that someone cares enough to call you out. I was sensing that this conversation was being driven by seniors and returners and I wanted to make sure that it was not being made out to be a plea by the seniors to do well so we can go out with a bang, but so that each and every one of us is fighting and working and playing with everything in them for a personal reason in addition to the common goals that we all committed to so many months back. After that meeting, I had never felt more confident that our team was on the same exact page and truly felt that if we physically brought our best game to the table in San Diego we couldn’t be beat.

San Diego was absolutely fantastic with so much support from our friends and families coming from near and far made the competition that much more exciting. Winning game one in exciting fashion in the seventh inning thanks to a clutch lead off single by sophomore outfielder and San Diego native, Vanessa Currie, followed by a bomb over the left field fence by our most consistent long ball hitter, Ali Palermo. Unfortunately we could not get our bats going the second game and fell to the Tritons, finishing with a split on the day. We were still anxious to make a statement on their senior day on their home field and close the gap between first and second place standings. We knew neither of our teams were going to give up a lot of runs because in the previous three games they were truly pitching duels. San Diego came with an athletic defense, but not comparable to ours if you ask me, so I was hopeful our bats would come alive and we would be the ones to flub one less ball or come up with that one clutch ball in the gab because deep down we all knew that’s what it was going to come down to. In the final game of the series we were dominant early by scoring first and recognizing the need for everyone to contribute by getting on base, executing signs, wanting singles instead of hacking for homers, and simply getting the job done. UCSD would not go down without a fight and actually loaded the bases in the bottom of the 7th down one run, but the combination of our three pitchers put them to rest and we came out on top with the eventual win leaving San Diego a half of a game behind the Tritons and hopeful to a great series against Dominguez Hills on our senior weekend, were still in the running for first place and we want it bad!

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 :)

Jesse Talaugon: Time to DO WORK.

We started off this last Friday in Turlock in dominating fashion having Samantha Lipperd on the mound gave us the momentum to get the win, considering she threw her third career no-hitter. We were really happy with our aggressive mentality at the plate, we did not have a ton of hits, but we were attacking early, hitting the ball hard, and were confident that our balls would soon find gaps and end up dropping. This approach would be sure to help us find offensive success in the near future.

Game two of day one was an interesting one where we struggled early on with giving up free bases and crediting Stanislaus with a few clutch hits in the gap allowing them to score early. Down early for a few innings we finally busted out our bats and were actually even to gain the lead for an inning. Even though we were able to muster up seven runs, we were unable to get the win and were outscored by Cal State Stanislaus 12-7. In a game where 19 runners crossed the plate and seven of them were Seawolves, we were obviously disappointed with the loss, but happy with our fight and offensive performance at the end of the day.

Going into this series, we were looking to take four. I personally had predetermined this series as being one that was either going to boost our success onward and really solidify ourselves a spot in the top of the conference standings or we were going to have to fight our way up and rely on other teams to fail in order to make moves because we had dropped games. Losing one game on Friday still left us with the opportunity to win the series so long as we took both games on Saturday.

Saturday morning we were excited to see (Brittani) Weatherford again and were eager to face her a second time for we had charted her tendencies against each of us and had an even better idea of what we would see from her. Our eagerness didn’t exactly equate runs scored. We were able to get people on base, but struggled with getting them in as well as struggling with execution. Fortunately, with Brittanie Verissimo getting on base early with a single up with middle she set up senior, Kayla Ledford with a familiar situation, one where we needed her to come through clutch. In my personal opinion, Kayla Ledford is the most clutch offensive player in our lineup and has been for quite some time. If you asked me to choose someone to get the winning run in, during a pressure situation I would choose number 3, Kayla Ledford every single time. She thrives under pressure, has a tremendous amount of power, and has every reason to be extremely confident at each plate appearance. Sure enough she blasted a two-run bomb to give us the lead 2-1, and the eventual win.

Where we were once struggling with winning the first game of the day that was not the case this past weekend. In similar fashion to Friday’s performance, we dropped the second game of the day and the final out come of this series with Stanislaus was a split. From the coaches point of view they are hinting at the fact that offensively many of us are different players at practice then we are when it comes to games, implying that we need to take hacks just as big and just as confidently in the game as we do when we receive front toss of coach. Coach Mack gave us some food for thought and told us to “go out and play like we had never failed”; like we had never popped out, never struck out, never flubbed a ball, committed an error, etc.

Hopefully we can carry this mentality over into our series against Chico this weekend. Still I feel that we are seriously struggling with leaving runners on base and not stepping up and being the person that gets those runners in and instead our waiting for our “clutch” players to get the job done. In what I feel is our biggest series to date against Chico, we have a lot to prove to them and need to fill some voids in our game in order to find the success we deserve. Cross your fingers for weather that at least allows us to get these games in this weekend.

Jesse Talaugon: On A Mission.

Our series against CSU San Bernardino was a performance much closer to what we expect out of ourselves. Prior to playing, I had suggested that we have a meeting with the Captains/Council; which consists of the three captains and one council member from each of the remaining classes. We sat with Coach Bridges in left field and caught up on how we thought the team was doing and brought up whatever we felt needed to be addressed. My biggest concern was the as captains, we were conveying the same message to the team and that we didn’t have conflicting ideas to the team. I felt that at this rate we have had the opportunity to get our feet wet with this years team in our conference, but now is the time to expect more out of ourselves and that our performance was not good enough and we needed to put a little more pressure to perform even better. Everybody was on board with that idea and the next step was determining what was the best way to approach this idea and how we would get this message across without beating a dead horse and without seeming as if what we are doing is not good because it is, this team is just destined to be great.

The six of us made it our personal missions, to be the driving force behind changing the road that we were on and it was apparent that it sunk in with our team and our approach to this past series was much different from the series' earlier this season. We really wanted to change the theme of dropping the first game of the day and we were able to do that Friday afternoon. We really looked more aggressive at the plate, but our adjustments weren’t made quite as early as we would have liked, but coming out with two wins at the end of the day was a big accomplishment for us. Day two of the series was again about making the adjustment we had two games worth the day before to assess our competition and we were well aware of what we were going to face. Again, we came out swinging and were starting to string our hits along and we even scored early which is a bit of a rarity for our team. We were able to pull out a win the first game thanks to good at bats which loaded the bases and an insurance run thanks to a solo shot by sophomore third baseman, Brittanie Verissimo which sailed high over the left field fence.

Looking to sweep the Coyotes, we were let down dropping the final game of the series. Without a doubt the only thing that held us back from sweeping that series, was errors. Our defense is something that we as a team pride ourselves on and we know that it is a strong suit and we know how much we excel in that area of the game. We made some poor decisions, questioned our ability to make command decisions and carry them out, and simply were not anticipating the ball a play ahead. With that said, though Coach Mack gave us something to be proud of in stating that finally we showed up and played an exciting game, she felt that it was the best game we have played to date, aside from the errors of course. We are really looking forward to the next series in Turlock and hopefully solidify our spot in the top half of conference standings, but before that happens we will come out taking hacks in our doubleheader against the Academy of Art in San Francisco tomorrow (Wednesday at 3 p.m.).