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.