This season has been one of my most memorable seasons competing at Kean University.  Maybe it was because I was a senior, or maybe it was because of all the injuries that went on this year that we had to battle through.  It has been a great run, but like they say all good things come to an end.  I couldn't tell you how proud of a senior I was looking around seeing all these young faces stepping up and filling big roles.  It was a great reflection of the coaches and the upperclassmen.  We battled through so much this year, and fought all the way till the very last out.  It was remarkable making our third consecutive appearance back to the College World Series, in Appleton, Wisconsin.  Although, no one had visions of losing in the tournament we gave it our very best and left it all out on the field. 

This has been a great four years of baseball at Kean.  Looking back I'll cherish all the memories and accomplishments I have been a part of in my career here.  I'll never forget the great players who I've made such great bonds with and the coaches who were there for me through thick and thin.  I have the utmost respect for each and every one of the coaches and wish them future success.  On and off the field the coaches here have been a class act.  I've never met a group of men willing to spend so much time and effort just to help one succeed.  They have taught me many life values in which I will never forget.  These seven coaches have been the best coaches I have ever come across in my career and no words can thank them enough for all they have done. 
     

  Looking back since I was a freshman to now, we have won everything there was to win.  I couldn't have asked for a better four years than my time here at Kean.  I'll never forget all the big games, our competitive trips to Cali, having a chance to compete week in and week out, and just hanging out with all my teammates on and off the field, I couldn't thank you guys enough. It takes a certain kind of baseball player to play at Kean.  You have to come ready to play everyday because you always have a target on your back, everyone always wants to knock off the top gun.  You have to put all you have into the whole season and do whatever it takes for your teammates and most importantly your coaches.  Kean baseball is just one big family. A family which never dies, it only gets stronger as the years go on.  As I close the door on the 2009 Season, I just want to thank you all of you who have read my blogs, it has been a great season.  Watch out for Kean in the future, with many faces coming back and some talented newcomers they will be a force to be recon with.

I just wanted to give a special thanks to all those who drove or flew out to support us in Wisconsin.  It was great having your support all season long.

Special shout out to all the seniors on a great year:

Brandon Aich, Mike Manganiello, Colin Feneis, Pedro Rivera, Joe Rizzo, Drew Campbell, and myself Kyle Murphy.   

Lastly, a special thanks to all the coaches for a great 4 years, best of luck for future success:

Neil Ioviero, Jamie Ioviero, Lewis France, Jack Nagy, Francisco Romero, Frank Beckhorn, and Matt Scano. 

With less than 24 hours left till we take off for the College World Series in Appleton, Wisconsin no words can describe how each and every one of us feel.  This has been a hard fought, battle tested season and we pushed and pushed our way through the Mid- Atlantic Regional Tournament and punched another ticket to the College World Series.  It truly is remarkable when you sit back and take a look at our accomplishment.  Some of us have been around since our first trip back in 2007, when we took the trophy home.  This is our third consecutive trip back to the Fox Cities area, and we couldn't be anymore excited to get started out there.  This season has had so many ups and downs, with the plague of injuries on our team, to the many new faces that have stepped up and filled roles.  Our Coach always says, somehow, someway we'll find a way to get it done.  This year epitomized that saying.  We might not look like the biggest or most powerful team you're going to face, but we have that never die attitude, whether we're up ten or down ten we just don't quit. That has made us extremely competitive.

With the bitter taste in our mouth after the Conference Tournament, we were extremely excited for Regionals to get underway.  We busted our butts for ten or some odd days of practice and went over all the basics and did everything possible we could have done to prepare us for our next goal, to win the Mid-Atlantic Region.  The Mid-Atlantic Region was filled with many good teams and we ended up getting the one seed, but we knew that didn't mean anything.  All it takes in tournaments is to just get hot at the right time. We knew we had to go into regionals with good pitching, solid defense and just get those timely hits.  Everything came together at the right time and we took home the Mid-Atlantic Regional trophy.  It was a great accomplishment to get a chance to play in the College World Series for the third consecutive year but we're going in there trying to win the whole thing.  We had two solid, well focused practices which hopefully will prepare us for our trip back.

We have the returning National Champs, Trinity College in game one.  We're all real excited for the match up and are eager to get out there and get it on.  The 2007 National Champs vs. the 2008 National Champs.  All the teams in the tournament are very good, you don't make this tournament with out being talented.  It should be a great tournament and we can't wait for it to get underway.  I know we are young, but we have a solid core of guys that will keep the young guys from site seeing and keep there eyes on the prize.  We're going out there very loose, focused and just going to take it one game at a time. If we do that, and do all the little things and have that never die attitude hopefully it will end up with another pile on, and Kean holding the trophy high up in the air.

Weekly Round Up...

A few of the seniors after the Regional Championship game were talking, and someone mentioned, well I'm glad we weren't the senior class that tripped up the consecutive trips to Wisconsin.  Right on, good luck next year seniors.

In the Regional Championship game another player and I took a walk up to the Lakewood BlueClaws locker room.  It was pretty crazy, he bought a Powerade and I went to the bathroom.  On our way back to the dugout, we ended up getting lost for 5 minutes.  Apparently we made a wrong turn and ended up in the front of the stadium.  Good thing Neil wasn't paying attention.

We do a thing before the game starts up.  It's called a "Here We Go".  I'm sure it's known across the country in the D3 baseball land.  We're not unveiling any secrets but it will be in full effect for the College World Series. 

What a crazy pile on last week, when we won the Region.  I don't know who was on the bottom but sorry fellas it definitely had to hurt.  Hopefully, we have one more pile on left in us.

We're meeting at Kean at 4 am to head to the airport for a 6 o'clock flight.  Are we serious 4 am, I didn't even know that you were allowed to fly at that time.  It's in like 5 hours. I heard some of us will be sleep walking to Kean, to get on the bus. 

Today at practice we had News 12 come and interview us on our trip to the World Series.  It's always comical because they always stay for at least an hour but our coverage on TV is about 2 minutes.  We were all joking about that today.

Today at practice I was umpiring our inner squad.  I give umpires a lot of credit, because of all the complaining I had to hear about for one inning.  I couldn't imagine doing a nine inning game. People would be tossed left and right.

I'll be in touch in Wisconsin.

This always seems to be the best and most exciting time of the year.  Classes finishing up, nothing else to do but concentrate and play the sport you love.  It has been a while since my last blog, but with finals and such I wasn't able to keep up.  Looking back we lost the conference championship tournament, and are fortunate enough to have a good enough record overall this season to receive an at large bid to the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament.  Ever since our loss in the Conference Tournament, things around here have been more intense and practices have been more grueling.  We all know that it's going to take a lot of hard work, determination and our max effort day in and day out to head back to Wisconsin.  That in fact is our goal; we don't just want to go to Regionals to say we made it there and won a game here and there.  Our goal is to walk away May 17^th with the trophy and a plane ticket heading to Wisconsin for a crack at another National Championship.  A bus ticket wouldn't be bad either, since I'm not a fan of flying.

We actually just found out the good news this morning that we are heading to Regionals with the number one seed. A bunch of us were pulling all nighters to see what seed we got, and who we open up against. We're all pumped but at the same time very focused that we don't have a tournament slip up like last week. Another tournament like our last week and the season is over. The past few games or so we've needed a spark or something to get us going and back on track.  The atmosphere around here hasn't been the same.  Hopefully though, this regional tournament and a chance to get back to the College World Series alone will bring out the best in all our guys.  In these tournaments, it doesn't matter if you're the number one seed or the number eight seed.  It's just all about who's getting hot at the right time, and hopefully our bats come alive and our pitching and defense are the best it's been all year.

We have two more solid days of practice and than we head to the hotel for regionals.  We need to get after it today and tomorrow and really bust our butts if we want to win this Region.  It takes four games to win the tournament, if we take one game at a time and play the way were capable of playing hopefully in a week from now I'll be writing my next blog from Wisconsin. We have made two trips to the College World Series in the past two seasons, and I know no one on this team wants to snap the streak at two. We want to keep the consecutive trips to the World Series rolling for as many years as we can and vie for as many National Championships as possible.  One is not enough.  Good Luck to all the teams playing in the Regional Tournament. 

My Weekly Round Up.....

During BP, pitchers get a spot on the field to track down foul balls or in between gaps to help out the position players.  One position no one likes is back up, meaning everyone throws you the balls and you collect them and put them in a ball bucket and wait until they run out of balls for BP.  Than you have to wheel the kart to the mound, it's the worst.  Well leave it up to Nick Cesare to tip over the kart on his way in to give the balls.  The balls went everywhere, funny enough for everyone to start laughing.  That a boy Nick, you have homeruns from now on. 

For my four years at Kean University, I have never hit fungos and never got to step up on to the big stage and hit a multiple.  Let's just say my fungo skills are sub par, so all season long I have been working on it and just wanted to step up just one time for a multiple. Neil sticks me as far away from fungos as possible, and I don't blame him.  I usually just catch Drew as he hits to third during multiple, but one day he wasn't there.  It was my moment to shine, a little nervous at first and a few line drives over their heads, but later I settled down.  I have now been hitting multiple on a daily basis, some say I have a career in it and could get a call up to the bigs.

Nick Nolan and Mike Moceri are going to Hawaii to play baseball this summer.  You should have seen Moceri walking around campus the other day in his Hawaiian bathing suit.  I think he thought he was at the beach when realistically he was walking down Cougar Walk.  I hope you and Nolan have matching ones, you'll look like locals down there.

Sorry it's been a while since my last blog but with classes and our busy schedule I had no time to keep up.  We have a huge week ahead of us, as we approach the last week of conference games.  This past week we took over first place in the standings by one game.  Our overall record is 28-7 and 12-3 in conference.  We took a tough loss a week back that was just not acceptable, and ever since the bar has been raised a tad bit more to come out everyday ready to play.  Last season, around this time we brought a gas tank to every game to ask ourselves "how much more do you have left in the tank".  This season, our Coach brought Hulk Gloves to practice and asked us "how much fight we have left in us", so ever since the Hulk Gloves have been in the dugout with us at each game as a symbol to play a little harder. 

Our team just came off a huge week.  We had six games this past week and we needed to come away with all six victories to make a run for first place in the conference.  We took it one game at a time and came to play everyday.  We all knew what we had to do and everyone contributed one way or another.  I'd say our bats were red hot as we produced 71 runs in six games. It was nice today to have an off day so we could give them a day to rest up for this upcoming week.  This past week really showed us what kind of team we are this season.  It was one of our first big tests, playing with a lot of pressure, no room for error and with no rest, we pulled it together and walked away with some key victories that pushed us into the lead in the NJAC. 

Looking at the week ahead of us, it doesn't get much easier.  We have four games this week, one out of conference region game and three huge conference games that determine if we win the conference or not.  Again, we must come to play each and every game.  Everyone knows what's at stake here this week and we want to walk away 4-0 and finish as Regular Season NJAC Champions.  So the intensity has been raised a bit more and everyone seems to be more focused as we approach the final week of regular season. The Hulk Gloves will be with us all week as they pump us up even more to play harder.   Hopefully the next time I'll be on here, we will have won the NJAC Regular Season and will be the number one seed in the NJAC Tournament. 

Round up of the Previous Weeks:

At Jersey City, down in the bullpen one of the guys was sitting on the edge of the bench and we all shifted and knocked him off.  Everyone in the stands got a kick out of it.  That's like a NJCU ritual down in the bullpen, it happens every year.

Whenever a pitcher throws a shut out, we get to play a game were the pitchers get to hit.  It's called "One Eyed Cat".  So last week we all got to play and relive our hitting days back in high school. 

The MVP Award definitely went to our Assistant AD, as we needed one more person to play, he came off the golf cart with such short notice and didn't even have time to stretch or throw and just hoped right into the game.

The day after One Eyed Cat all the pitchers were sore from the game. We definitely got a little too carried away with the game and next time have to take it down a notch.

Last week our coach brought us up after practice and had us get in a circle, then he went behind the dugout with an assistant coach.  When Neil and Jaime came back, they were wearing Hulk Gloves and started fighting Frank with the gloves.  Every since the gloves have been a symbol in the dugout of "how much more fight do we have left in us". 

This past week we added two more players to the DL, weird right? At the rate it's going this year with our guys dropping like flies, we won't have a roster in a few weeks.

Second Baseman Mike Moceri, no words can describe what kind of season he is having right now, but you think he could clean up a little bit more at the house. 

We have two streaks on the team this year.  Second baseman Mike Moceri has a 16 game hit streak going on right now. The cards are falling for him this year. But, more impressively is first baseman Lee Cavico's one month streak of sleeping on our couch. We all decided to officially name him a roommate to the house now, Welcome Lee.

Saving the best for last ladies and gentlemen Nick Nolan just received good news from the athletic trainers.  He will be able to starting swinging a bat soon, tickets are already sold out at Jim Hynes Stadium but you might be able to watch it live from Cougar TV.  You should have seen him swinging the bat around the house last night, it wouldn't surprise me if he slept with his DeMarini.  

Conference action got underway last week as we got off to a good start going 3-1 in the first week. That improves our season record to 17-5. Now that conference play is here everyone is real excited.  This is the best part of the season, the games get a lot more intense and we have to grind out every game.  Our conference is always competitive and you have to come to play every game.  This year some other teams are stepping it up to make the conference even tougher. Every college baseball player has to love when conference starts up, this sparks up a whole new season with a lot of ups and downs.  Hopefully, we rise more times this year than fall. 

It's nice having the turf field.  It was raining throughout our whole first conference game against MSU as we just barely got it in. I'm not sure how he does it but our closer came in and recorded three strike outs in style.  It was a good thing he did that because there were runners on second and third and if he allowed up a hit we would have tied or possibly got the loss.  It was a huge first win, and against one of our biggest rivals is always a nice way to start up conference play.  Next up we had Rutgers-Newark.  This was a battle as we fell short in extra innings.  We were down 6-2 at one point and fought our way back, but came up short losing 7-6 in the tenth.  This past weekend we had a huge double header against a very good Rowan team.  It was imperative to walk away with at least a split, but we grinded out two big conference victories down there and finished the week 3-1 in conference play.  Rowan's doubleheader epitomized

NJAC play. It was intense all day, good pitching duel, and a lot of fans.  Those are the games you want to play in, you have to love that atmosphere.  It's those games that help you prepare for the big games down the road. 

Round up of Last Week:

Playing our first conference game in a monsoon ... Those are the days you wish to play in, to open up conference action ... Nothing beats a gray day, with wind and rain.

One of the craziest plays I have ever seen happened against Rutgers-Newark ...  Foul pop-up to the catcher that scored two runs?????? Had to be there ... it was wild.

During our doubleheader this past weekend, it was fun sharing all of our sandwiches and snacks; it's way better eating after winning the first game ... We all see who brings the best sandwiches, but there's no contest, the Staten Island native holds the title. 

How about two of the smallest guys on the team hitting home runs for us last weekend...baseball is a wacky sport ...  I didn't forget about you Mags, he also added a 3 run shot this past weekend.

Our second baseman, Moceri, got some help from above this weekend ... Whatever he ate the night before, jeez he should do it all year ... It was like angels in the infield.  

Lastly, an "Unknown" person, I'll leave it at that, dancing on the bus ride home from Rowan ... After watching some of those moves, I could definitely picture him on "Dancing With the Stars" ... he has my vote.

            After a nice warm week out in California we returned to Jersey for the rest of our regular season action.  California got a little rough at times, due to a plague on our team that has taken a decent amount of our players out with injuries.  It's almost getting comical now with the injuries taking place; it's like we should be playing all our games under a bubble so it protects us.  Yet, with a few big players out for our squad, many new faces have stepped up and filled their roles.  Everyone knows that through the injuries and anything else that may take place this season, we are all a family and we have to pick one another up.

            Overall, we went 3-3 out in California and now have a 13-4 record on the season.  Cali got a little rough; we hit a 3 game losing streak, but we all knew it would just take time to get out of the funk we were in.  For the time we were losing, nothing at all seemed to go our way.  We finally came out with a big win against our biggest rival out in Cali, Chapman.  Our closer stepped up and pitched a complete game and we walked away with the victory 6-5.  I think that win really turned things around for us and got us back on track.  Everyone rose to the occasion and knew if we wanted to go to the places we want to go this year, we had to walk away with the win. 

            The California trip was filled with many laughs and pranks.  Our rooms were right over the pool lounging area, which was not good for teammates looking to relax by the pool.  One of the days a few of the guys were looking to get some sun by the pool.  Little did they know they were going to get wet, a few of us got the ice buckets and filled them up with water and threw it down at the guys relaxing by the pool.  I'd say it cooled them off a little!  Later in the night, when guys were sleeping, a few of us went around and filled up the garbage buckets with water and put leaners on the door.  It left them with a good surprise when they opened their door for breakfast the next morning. We also had some early risers.  We set up a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call from the front desk, and set their alarm clock for 5:45 a.m., but put the clock underneath their bed. This way they'd just be getting back to sleep when a few minutes later their alarm clock would go off and they'd have to search around to find it.

            This was a fun trip and we took both good and bad things away from our time in Cali.  We all know what we need to do in order for us to succeed this season and all are excited for conference games to start up.  This upcoming week ignites conference play, so the bar has been raised a little more from here on out.  Well the World Baseball Classic is about to come on now, so all of us are going to watch it, GO USA! I'll be back later in the week.  

            Sorry it's been a while since my last blog, but we've been playing games everyday lately so between baseball and school work I've had no time.  Early last week we got snowed in a few days but thank goodness for who ever invented turf.  It took our grounds crew two days to plow the snow off the field and we were back in action.  This was a big week for us because we had several games and knew we had to come prepared to play everyday and match the intensity of our opponents.

             So far for this week, we put together a 4-1 record and a 8-1 overall record; we fell to Albright College earlier on, against a solid pitcher.  It was a good early test for our program on how we would come back after a tough early loss.  We bounced back in fashion.  A little scary for our fans and coaches, down early against The College at Brockport, 5-1, but we came alive late with an 8^th inning six run rally to pull ahead with the victory.  It was a great obstacle to overcome the day after a loss, we could have easily packed our bags and headed to the locker room but the coaches prepared us for games like this and we all know as players it just takes that one big inning.  Baseball is a wacky sport and you have to play all nine innings and anything can happen.

            This season there are going to be many more tough games.  Everyday we step on that field we have a huge target on our backs and other teams rise to the occasion to play us, but we know that, and we love it.  It takes a certain kind of baseball player to play here at Kean, each and everyday you put that uniform on, we play to get to reach our main goal of getting back to Wisconsin, and nothing less. 

            We have one more game this week, on Wednesday, than we head out to California for our rigorous Spring Trip.  Were all looking forward to the nice warm weather out there and the key matchups we have scheduled. Well I'm going to get going, my roommates and I our having a huge MVP Baseball tournament tonight.  A lot of talking has been going on all day about who's going to win, so it should be interesting. There are definitely some bragging rights on the line at this house right now. Loser has to buy tonight at Applebee's Half-Off Special.  So let the tournament get underway and let the champion be crowned....

            I'll be back sometime next week, on my lounge chair outside by the pool in the nice warm weather on the West Coast. 

Over the weekend, it snowed a few inches up here.  Due to the snow, we are now backed up a bit with games.  Doesn't look like we will be playing until possibly this weekend if we're lucky.  Looking back at last week's games, we came away with two victories to improve our record to 4-0.  We played FDU College at Florham and won 5-1, and later in the week had a big regional victory against DeSales, 3-0.

We had a freshman step up on the hill for us against FDU-Florham for his first collegiate start.  We couldn't have asked him to do a better job; he tossed 8 innings allowing only one run.  He is going to have a big role in helping us succeed this season, so it was great to see him go out there and get his first win.  We took the lead right in the beginning of the game, as our bats came alive in the first inning and we tacked on an early five-run lead.  That would be all we needed, as we came away with the 5-1 victory.

Next up, we had DeSales University.  This was a big regional game for us and we knew we had to be up all game.  DeSales is a competitive program and plays almost identical to our style of baseball here at Kean.  On the bump for us was senior pitcher Colin Feneis, he threw very well for us yielding 4 hits in 7 innings of work and not allowing a run.  He was in command throughout the whole course of the game and ended up giving the ball to our closer Brandon Aich, as he closed the door on the Bulldogs for the final two innings.  The two combined for our first shut out of the season, as we walked away with the victory 3-0.  It was a great early win for our team this season.

Over the weekend our coach gave us off to rest up and relax.  It was nice to take two days off in a row.  Due to the snow, it looks like we will be practicing for the next couple of days as our field is covered in snow.  We had a lot of games scheduled this week, so hopefully by the weekend will be back out there playing some baseball.  

            This past weekend the season got underway.  We had a tough match up against Stevens Institute opening day, but came away with the victory 4-3.  The next day we played Manhattanville College and our offense got hot as we poured on 19 runs.  We ended up winning 19-5.  Some good things came out of this weekend's games.  With many new faces to our program we had some shoes to fill for this upcoming season, but I believe the guys who had to step up did a great job in doing so.  All around from our pitching to our hitting, I think we had a good start to the season.  Nick Cesare started our first game against Stevens and did a good job, helped himself get out of a few jams here and there but it was good to see him throwing the ball well. Drew Campbell relieved Nick, and threw real well coming out of the pen until eventually giving the ball up to our closer Brandon Aich, who closed the door and sealed the victory. Our defense looked solid, which was great to see because that has been the big emphasis during practice. It was just great to get that opening day victory.  Looking at the game, there were a few things we took away, good and bad, that we have to work on for upcoming games, but everyone was very pumped and excited to get out there and embark on the '09 season. 

            Sunday's game against Manhattanville College was a cold rainy day, but we have been practicing in this kind of weather for weeks now and knew once we stepped on the field it was all business.  It was raining throughout the whole course of the game but we had our mind set on getting the win, and we knew we owed it to those guys.  They swept us last year and we wanted to seek our revenge.  We had our ace on the mound for us, Joe Bartlinski, who threw a solid game for us and always kept us in the lead.  I actually relieved Joe and threw the final two innings of the game.  The biggest factor in the game was our offense; they came alive early and never died as we strung 19 runs and 19 hits throughout the course of the game.  We ended up winning 19-5, and it was a total team effort.  I think everyone contributed in one way or another. 

            It was great to get off to a 2-0 start to the 2009 season.  Our coach gave us an off day today to relax and then we are back in action Wednesday and Thursday as we face FDU and DeSales. Well I'm going to enjoy my off day, I'll be back later in the week, hopefully 4-0. 

Finally, the last week of practice and the season gets underway.  It feels like it's been a long off-season and a month and a half of practice in preparation for the 2009 season.  This year we are generally a young team and have many new faces to our program.  With new faces entering the program it took a little more time getting acquainted with each other and having the rookies get used to the way things are run here.  It didn't take long for us to come together as a team and focus on our main goal of getting back to the World Series.  These past few weeks of practice we've been working extremely hard and have been outside in some frigid temperatures, but everyone knows that's what it takes to keep the tradition at Kean alive.  It's funny to watch when practice is over, everyone running or walking fast to the locker room to get out of the cold weather, you have to love Northeast baseball.  It probably won't get warm here til mid April, but through the snow and cold weather we will continue to work hard and keep our mind set on our goals for the season.

This is the last week of practice for us as we open up to Stevens Institute of Technology this Saturday.  The last couple of years we have opened up at their place, but this year we are fortunate enough to have our brand new Field Turf completed and ready to go at the start of the season.  We also lucked out and our first 12 games are all home.  Now some people might think that's a good thing, but a con to that is no meal money.  Every college athlete has to love traveling and getting meal money.  We are all hoping the weather cooperates with us for our first 12 games.  This year's schedule consists of some early tests for our team.  We have a lot of games in a short period of time, and then we head on a plane for our rigorous Spring Trip to California against some Top 25 teams. 

Well, it's getting late and we have an early practice tomorrow morning, but before I go to bed one of my roommates challenged me to a game of MVP College Baseball.  That's the big PS2 game at our house, we play until all hours of the night. I'll be back later in the week, hopefully 2-0.