This spring University of Evansville softball player Kristen Shirk will be providing a behind-the-scenes look at life as a UE softball player. To comment on Kristen's blog,
click here.
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Blog Entry #4 - April 3, 2008
What a great weekend it was! For the first time in my 3 years here, we were able to win the series over Wichita. In our first game of the series, we won in dramatic fashion scoring 4 runs to win by a score of 5-4. We were able to snap Wichita’s 4 conference game win streak, and we did it against one of the best pitcher’s in the league. After splitting on Saturday, we came out Sunday determined to win the series. After scoring in the first inning, we never looked back. It was a great game defensively, offensively, and pitching wise.
We were able to keep the wins coming with wins over Western Kentucky and UT-Martin. As a team, we also learned some new rules at the UT-Martin game! Rule #1: When clearing the pound of dirt out of the batter’s box, make sure that you DO NOT cover any of the lines up! The result is a called strike without the pitcher even pitching the ball. Rule #2: You only have 10 seconds to get set in the batter’s box once the pitcher has the ball. Even if your hand is raised for time, the umpire will not give it to you. The result is one very upset Brittany Herald who then goes on to hit a bomb that still has not yet landed!
We will end this week playing at Illinois State hoping to pick up three more wins! Our next home game will be a conference game against Southern Illinois on Wednesday next week.
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Blog Entry #3 - March 25, 2008
Sorry for the blog delay! This has been one crazy, middle of the season! We’ve played a total of 21 games and have 24+ games left! Let me fill you in on what’s been happening with us: the good news is, is that we have been able to practice outside! The bad news: since all of the rain and snow decided to hit Evansville and every place that we were supposed to travel, there really haven’t been that many games! About 8 of our games got rained/snowed out over spring break, so coach gave us off that entire week. The week back from spring break, we scheduled a double header with Middle Tennessee State since we hadn’t played a game for over a week! That weekend, conference started and it just so happened to be our first home games of the season. With the lovely Evansville weather, we had to push back our Saturday game to 5 and play a double header on Sunday. We lost a tough one to Drake in the first game, but we were able to come back Sunday and get revenge and win the series 2-1. This past weekend, our games at Northern Iowa were cancelled and once again, coach gave us time off to spend Easter with our families. This week, if weather allows, we are playing on Wednesday at Indiana University, and Saturday and Sunday at home against Wichita State. I usually don’t ask a lot of you all except to come out and support us, but this week, I ask you to pray to the Softball Gods for sunny weather!
Until next time!
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Blog Entry #2 - February 26, 2008
What a great two weeks of ball it’s been! Even though we have yet to practice outside on our field and we are 3 weeks into our season, it’s not slowing us down. Before I tell you about the past 2 weeks, I would like to send a shout out to all of the parents for making the trips to Auburn and Memphis!
Last weekend in Auburn, the weather was great and we went 4-1. In the first game, Jen Mckee picked up the win pitching a questionable one-hitter. Everyone at the game knows that the girl was out by a step! In the second game, we lost to Auburn in a 4-0 decision. Our best game of the weekend was our game against Marshall on Sunday. It was an awesome game for us both defensively and offensively. We ended the Auburn tournament on a high note by beating the Thundering Herd 1-0.
This past weekend we traveled to Memphis, Tennessee. Due to the weather in Evansville, we were forced to push our travel day back until Friday, which moved our tournament to Saturday and Sunday. Friday, the coaches took us to downtown Memphis for dinner. After dinner, coach gave us 15 minutes to walk down Beale Street. Let’s just say we used that 15 minutes for all it was worth! In those 15 minutes, we were able to get on the Memphis news dancing to “Rocky Top Tennessee” (which might make its way to youtube), and we took some pictures with some very interesting people. The people on Beale Street didn’t know what hit them! On Saturday, we came out ready to play. We opened up the tournament scoring 11 runs in the first inning. We ended up taking both games on Saturday easily. Sunday we ended up losing the first game to Morehead State in a hard fought battle of as coach would say “just inches”. We ended up losing that game 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh. In the second game, we came out swinging ready to get another win under our belts.
After three weeks, our record now stands at 8-4. Due to the weather, our Wednesday double header has been rescheduled for next Tuesday, and we travel to Atlanta on Friday for the Georgia State Tournament. I hope that the monsoons and freezing rain will stay out of Evansville so that we can practice outside!
GO ACES!
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Blog Entry #1 - February 13, 2008
Well let’s just say for the first time in my three years here it was finally AWESOME softball weather on opening day! We’ve been practicing since the first week back in January and haven’t been outside due to either the freezing cold weather or the monsoons of Evansville! We spent opening weekend in the 60 degree and sunny Albuquerque, New Mexico weather and we arrived home Monday early morning to what felt like negative temperatures in Evansville.
The trip there and back was quite an eventful one! This was the first time we have flown anywhere as a team. To all of those people on our flights to and from New Mexico who just wanted to fly in peace, on behalf of my team I would like to apologize for their lack of peace! Once in New Mexico, our way of transportation was 3 rental vans each driven by one of the coaches. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Pacifier”, the part where Vin Diesel drives the kids to school for the first time and they jump out of the car and yell LAND, that’s about the feeling that my entire van had when we arrived at the hotel on Friday night. It just so happened that our “fearless leader” driving our van was the one and only Coach Lewis! We only got “lost” once which according to coach was our fault because we were laughing too much and making fun of her that we made her miss the turn, but due to the great sense of direction of Brittany Herald and Amanda Ockomon, we were able to find our way back to the hotel. I think I can tell you that coach will never drive any of us again because she kept telling us that she cannot wait to drop us off!
All in all it was a great trip to New Mexico minus the fact that we came back 1-2, but next week in Auburn we are hoping to turn that around. We have 2 practices this week to prepare, and it’s looking again that we will be practicing inside due to the fact that as I am typing, it is a blizzard outside! Until next time!
GO ACES!!!!
