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.