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.