Oh dear G-d we have not blogged in a long time.  Kristi and Kidnie are tired and BUSY.  Last week was probably the busiest that we have had in the memory of Eau Claire softball. Finals are closing in so all of our last minute papers and projects have been coming due...
 We were supposed to have 10 games but because of weather we ended up only have 8.  This week we play St. Mary's tomorrow and Whitewater (in what could be the conference championship) on Friday. We also play Sunday at Oshkosh.

Yesterday we had practice and it was WINDY but we really used it to our advantage and the outfielders got a lot of reps practicing the weather conditions.  And today we had practice outside again (the weather is absolutely gorgeous).  We hit live off of some of our coaches and worked a lot on hitting the outside pitch...goody! We will be ready for this week! yay!

This past weekend we played at Point, and won both games.  We had a lot of timely hitting and our pitching staff threw really well! Shout out to Ainsley Klar who hit her first collegiate homerun :) woo!  It was nice to get our offense going, as we have had a few slumps.

Salter you were right in response to last week's trivia.  It was Jen Barron who dropped her brand new batting gloves in the port-a-potty! So our new question for this week is: Name 6 ways to get on base without getting a hit...?

Thanks for reading and hopefully we will talk to you soon! Until next time..heres looking at you kid...nie :)

Hello again to our readers

Kidnie has a fitting joke for everyone:
Knock knock
Who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you impressed we are blogging so early!?
And its true! We haven't even let a week go by and here we are blogging again! :) 

So we last left you on Wednesday, when our home games against St. Norbert got postponed.  So starting Thursday, we opened up conference.  Our first opponent  was UW-River Falls.  They were two tough games and we pulled away 4-3 and 5-3.  Kidnie and Jenny Janke both got their second home runs of the season! Woo! It was nice to open up the WIAC with two wins, because every team in the WIAC is tough. 

Games 3 and 4 were against Platteville.  The first game against them was 6-2.  Stalker went 3-4 and JB went 3-3...those kids are on FIRE!! yay good thing they play for us! right? The second game was pretty good until they starting hitting in the last few innings.  We ended up winning 4-3 though so it worked out.

Yesterday was stressful to say the least.  The first game against LaCrosse was about seven years long.  Seriously though it was pushing on 3 hours and thats a LONG time for Kidnie to stay focused...
It was a battle back and forth and we ended up winning 10-8.  Then like fifteen min. off and we had to play again. They got a lead and held us 1-0 for a long time.  Then the inning of errors happened and they scored 3 runs.  And when I say inning of errors I actually mean inning of millions of errors.  We didn't give up though, we ended up scoring 3 runs but it was too little too late and we lost 4-3 :( sad day

Since yesterday was our last weekend home game, we fit a ton of events into one day.   We had Leave a Legacy day, Senior Day, Alumni Day and Breast Cancer Awareness day.  The team got to wear pink jerseys and Kristi wouldn't have had it any other way on Senior day!  We also had a banquet honoring the alumni after the game, but it started a little late since our first game was pushing three hours long! It was great to see all the alumni and for them to share their stories and memories with us.  We want to thank all of the sponsors who helped to make this weekend possible and for all the people who came out to support us!  Look for Jill and Casey's alumni video soon to be posted on the internet!

In regards to last week's trivia, Gene you were correct!  Coach has a special place in her heart for Gelein Field because that is where she won her National Championships with Simpson College. 
Trivia this week: What teammate of ours, on Senior Day, dropped her brand new batting gloves (that were not yet paid for) into a port-a-potty? And then she proceeded to USE the port-a-potty??

Until next time, here's looking at you kid...nie! :)

Hello everyone!

So remember how we said we were going to blog a lot more than we are? well we didn't say that it started today...but it does.  Starting meow we will be blogging a lot more.  Sowwy *puppyeyes*

So it's been an interesting week.  We were supposed to go to St Louis this weekend but Coach had a real good feeling that it was going to snow (because the weatherman told her...shhh).  Some other teams went anyways and all the games got cancelled and they payed a lot of money to sit in a hotel all weekend long.  Props Coach...props.
Instead of sitting in a hotel we got Friday off, had practice on Sat. along with a 2 hour team meeting...yawn (jk is was very helpful and gave us a better insight into our team dynamic).  On Sunday we had some last min. games against Northland and then a double header against St. Scholastica.  We were hoping that we would be able to play on our home field at Gelein but we ended up playing on the football turf because it was still sort of mushy.  Playing on turf was weeeeird, but it was kind of like playing in the dome which most of us have done. 

We learned the hard way that bases slide around on the turf, as one of our teammates tried to steal and slid right past the base (she would've been safe had she held on).  We ended up beating Northland 9-1.  We had 13 hits and it was a great team effort! From there we ended up beating St. Scholastica twice.  It was awesome that these two teams could take the time and come down to play us! We heard that St. Scholastica was supposed to have the weekend off, but they managed to round up a team and come down and play some ball.  It was wonderful that we ended up getting some games in! 

We had the day off Monday, and Tuesday we were back at it.
Tuesday was interesting.  We didn't have any of our hitting things because they were at carson park where we play our games so we couldn't hit real balls.  Instead we hit marshmallows.  We did front toss with marshmallows....seriously.  Kidnie personally wanted to eat the marshmallows but it was pretty gross once they hit the bat.  We also conditioned because we had a LOT of errors on Sunday.  I wish that we didn't have to do that..but until we can have errorless games it is inevitable!! rawr

Today we had our games against St. Norbert canceled due to weather again (weird..thanks Wisconsin).  We rescheduled it to April 15 (we think).   It was snowing pretty hard this morning but ended up clearing around 2ish.  We had a productive team practice  with hitting and run down situations. 
We also had Matt Queen come in and interview us about our blogging as well :) So Kidnie and I got to talk about the joys and fun we have blogging.  We also let the world know that our blog is way cooler/funnier than Coach's.  Just kidding Coach...:)  The story will be on WEAU on the Sunday night show for all of you who want to see the minds behind the magic of our blogs :) 

Here is our trivia question: What year did our current Coach win a National title with another team and at what field?? :)

Until next time (hopefully very soon)     here's looking at you kid...nie  :)

Hello again to all our faithful readers.  Sorry that we have kept you in suspense, we had a busy week in Arizona in our opening games! As a team we were lucky enough to take a spring break trip down to Tucson and open up our season with 12 games in 7 days!

The first night we got there, we landed around 10:30 p.m.  By the time we got off the plane, got our luggage and our sweet 15 passenger vans, we rolled out of the Phoenix airport by 12:30 a.m.  We stopped for a quick snack before continuing our two hour journey to Tucson.  We got in around 2:30 and got to sleep around 3.  It was a long day, but we managed to keep Robin awake with our amazing singing voices and dance moves for the two hour drive down there.

We woke up the next morning, Kristi's 22nd birthday, to a warm and beautifully sunny day!  It was around 80 degrees and we were finally able to put on our cleats and step out on to the diamond!  After a successful two hour practice, we headed back to our hotel to shower and change.  We ended up going out to dinner at the Pinnacle Peak, where we were allowed to order steaks! (Thank you Dale!) And much to Kristi's objection, they sang happy birthday to her.  We then retired to the hotel and hit the sack early because we had such a long day of activities and excited for our first games!

The first team we played was the University of La Verne from California. Even though we lost the game 2-1, we still fought hard.  We left 10 on base and had 5 hits as a team, but it wasn't enough. Luckily we bounced back and won the second game against Central College from Iowa.  We got our first game jitters out and won 7-2.  We pounded out 9 hits and even had our first home run of the year- Sara Baumgartner! Congrats!! :)

After the game we came back to the delicious meal that the Rogge's had waiting for us.  Our team can never turn down food, and have amazing appetite's! :)  We went to bed early again for we had two more opponents to face that Sunday.

Our first game Sunday was against Edgewood College from Madison.  It was a pretty uneventful game until the third when Edgewood scored three runs.  We answered back in the bottom with 4 runs and ended up winning 5-3. 
The second game was against Marian ...another WI school (we travel across the country to play people from here? wha?!)  We again had to come from behind when Marian scored 6 runs in the second inning...we had a TON of errors p.s.  However we were able to pull it together and win 11-6.
After the games we had a LONG talk about how we can NOT continue to play from behind.  We need to get our bats moving earlier in the game and score the people that we get on base.
Later that evening we had a wonderful catered dinner provided by Aunt Mimi :) We also got great gifts from her (cashmere scarves!! baaa!!).  We ate chicken and pasta and then had cake...num num num.
It was a night filled with funny stuff but it hurt to laugh because many of our faces were sunburnt.  That night was the beginning of Jro and Kidnie's obsession with the movie Role Models.  And I almost feel bad for their roommates (Kristi, Emily P. and Brooke)...but not really.  Also we really need to congratulate room 224 for downing 5 2-gallon jugs of chocolate milk over the week...well done girls, well done.

anways... we will continue with the rest of our trip later on this week...we don't 'want to give it all away in one MASSIVE blog...that would be silly.

---------
also Coach cancelled morning conditioning for the rest of the week (wahoo) and we had optional practice this afternoon...Kidnie didn't go, but Kristi did.  Anyway........... we need rest from the weekend so we all thank coach and give her hugs.

P.S. Mallory McKinney is the player we were talking about in the last trivia questions...she falls down a lot :)


Till next time,

Here's looking at you kid...nie

Hello all of our faithful readers (all five) Kidnie and Kristi are back!

First we'd like to thank you guys for reading we appreciate the support!  And we will do our best to keep you updated throughout the 2009 season. 

Now...business

Answering your comment Juliaclare, those sound like really great goals, especially for someone your age!  The best advice we can give you about trying to get recruited is be proactive.  YOU should be the one contacting the coach, fill out forms on their websites and even sending videos.  (We also have heard of people puting their skills videos on Youtube and that way the coach can have them at their disposal).  Email them, offer to visit and observe practice.  In our experiences it's usually best if YOU are the one making the contact and not a parent or coach.  Keep in mind, that we are playing our season at the same time you do so it's hard for coaches to travel and see other games.  Good luck and keep us posted!!

 

Week six is half way done and we're 7 days away from being in Arizona and playing OUTSIDE! wahoo! Kristi's mom has also informed her that on her birthday (our first day in Arizona), March 13 for all those of you who want to wish her a happy 22nd birthday, that it will be 80 degrees in Arizona :) yipee!  Coach gave us some really exciting news...if our diamond is clear enough tomorrow we are going to practice outside... thats the best news we've heard in ages! 

This week we have been focusing a lot on live pitching and specific team defense.  We are doing the best we can while being indoors and providing real life situations. Finally, we only have one more morning of conditioning (before break), and one more morning of spin class!  

 

Coach also handed out the packing list for Arizona, and  we're doing our best to pack according to the new rules and regulations.  Don't worry, Kidnie will still have her keyboard to entertain us all (or just annoy us!).  Coach is giving us this weekend off so we can all go home and get everything ready to go!

 

In response to our trivia we asked last week, Jessie Flood IS the correct answer! Flood, only having pitching experience, went up to bat when Kristi was done DP-ing.  The bases were loaded and she had a 0-2 count, having looked at a meatball and swung wildly at the next pitch.  She proceded to stick out her rear-end, and get nailed, therefore advancing all the runners and scoring us a run! We ended up winning that game which brought us to the game before the National Championship.  Even though Jill does have the record for getting hit the most by any Blugold player, Jessie Flood's courageous act will go down in history as the most infamous hit by a pitch we've yet to see. 

Now for our new trivia question:  Which former Blugold softball player was on second base and watched a homerun sail out of the park, and then proceded to trip and land flat on her face? Find out next week what player we've embarassed!!

 

Until next week, here's to looking at you kid...nie!

Kidnie and Kristi

Hello Everyone!
Let us introduce ourselves.  My name is Kristi Doucette and I'm a senior at UW-Eau Claire.  Last year I was the starting DP with a little bit of pitching on the side.  I am a Health Care Administration major hailing from Green Bay, WI.  I have never blogged before, but what better way to start off than doing it for my team?

Hi, I'm Bekki Kidnie and I'm a junior at UW-Eau Claire.  I have been the starting catcher for the team for the past two years and I hit middle of the order.  I am a vocal performance major from St. Paul, MN and when coach asked if I wanted to do a journal to keep track of all the fun stuff we do in practice I jumped at the opportunity to talk some more.

Together we make up the team of BLOGGERS and it's going to be exciting...fasten up your seatbelts!! woop dee woop

So begins our 5th week of INDOOR practice.  Yes, Wisconsin still has snow on the ground and is 20 degrees on a good day.  This past weekend we hosted clinics on Sat. for 8th grade and younger and then Sunday was high school aged girls.  IT WAS A BLAST!  We all had to work different shifts in our own areas of expertise.  The clinic was a huge success and we earned a good chunk of money for our spring break trip to Tucson, Arizona...so thank you to everyone that made it a success!!

So like we said earlier...5th week of indoor practice...we're starting to get a little antsy.  But we just started hitting off of live pitching last week and Coach keeps a good variety of drills so it's not as bad as it seems.  The team seems to be getting to know each other well and is starting to click.  Being stuck together everyday for hours on end will do that to you right? Just kidding, who would have it any other way?

Big news of the day...we don't have morning conditioning tomorrow because we had a GREAT practice today! yay! Coach was saying how it's interesting that we need an incentive to get us to have a great practice and hustle all the time...looks like that was her way of telling us to focus just a little bit more.

This upcoming week we are starting to focus heavily on team defense and are having our first intersquad scrimmage of the season this Thursday morning! It will be nice to play a game and to put all of our hard work from drills into gear! We host our final clinic this weekend (yay for Kristi being a senior, boo for Kidnie who still has another year) down in Black River Falls.  We're hoping for another great clinic with girls who were as enthusiastic as this past weekend.

Thanks for taking the time to read our first blog.  We'll try to update once a week and keep you posted on everything Blugold softball! :)

Trivia Question of the Week: Who has the most infamous hit by a pitch in Blugold history?
We'll give you the answer and story next week :)

Until then "here's looking at you kid....nie"

Kristi and Kidnie
:)