This spring, University of Evansville junior baseball player John Foley will write a season blog about his first year as a Purple Ace. To comment on John's blog,
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Blog Entry #5 - April 24, 2008
As I write this, I am sitting on the bus making the long trip to Omaha, Nebraska to face the Creighton Bluejays. This provides me with plenty of time to reflect back on the last 10 days and to let everyone get an inside glimpse into Evansville Baseball.
After getting swept at Missouri State, we knew that we needed to bounce back. The college baseball season is 56 games long, which means you have plenty of opportunities to experience ups and downs, but also plenty of chances to learn from mistakes and bounce back from them. Unfortunately for us, our next game was against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Anyone familiar with college baseball knows that WKU is notorious for having a tremendous offensive ballclub, and this year is no exception.
We traveled to WKU for a midweek game and found ourselves on the wrong end of a lopsided score. Unlike many of the other losses we have had this year, this one was not for a lack of playing well. We played pretty solid baseball, but WKU can just flat out hit the baseball and they simply outscored us. Thankfully, baseball provides plenty of chances, and we took advantage of those chances the following day, when we bounced back to beat Oakland City University at home behind a stellar pitching performance from freshman Zach Taylor.
The win against Oakland City really set us up well for our weekend series with Indiana State. The Sycamores came to town sitting a few games ahead of us in the Valley standings. This weekend would turn out to be the best we have had all season as we took two of three from Indiana State. Friday’s series opener was delayed by rain after the 3rd inning and was resumed on Saturday. It was a back and forth affair and we were able to come from behind to win. We dropped the nightcap on Saturday in a wild, high scoring game, that included several home runs but we were able to bounce back on Sunday and win a close game behind a solid complete game effort from Mark Obenchain.
We are looking to take what we learned last weekend against Indiana State into this weekend’s series with a very talented Creighton team. Coming off our first series victory of the year, we are looking to build on that and make up some ground in the conference standings.
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Blog Entry #4 - April 14, 2008
In my last blog, I talked about how our team felt we had turned a corner in our development and how we were very excited for the rest of season. After two weeks, we still feel that way. We have been playing competitive baseball more frequently. Our win/loss record may not indicate that we have been playing better, but everyone associated with Evansville Baseball can see the improvement.
That improvement has not come without bumps in the road, however. When I last wrote, I talked of how we were coming off back to back wins for the first time and were heading into a home weekend Valley series with Illinois State. This series was one of the bumps in the road. We flat out did not play very well, and got swept by an Illinois State team that was winless in conference play. I think that series served as a wakeup call for many of us and we learned that despite our improvements, we still had work to do and needed to consistently play well in order to win games.
We took our lumps in stride and bounced back to win two more midweek games against Tennessee-Martin and Murray State. Once again we thought the momentum of winning back to back games would play into our favor as we traveled to Missouri State for three conference games. Despite playing fairly well, we were swept on the road, eventually sending us to our 11th consecutive conference loss. We also experienced a bit of déjà vu while in Missouri as the weather snapped back and turned cold again with snow falling throughout much of the final two games.
With two more midweek games ahead, and a weekend home series with Indiana State on deck, we will have plenty more opportunities to continue to improve. With all the youth and inexperience that we have on our roster, the best thing for our program is continue to play and gain more valuable experience. I feel confident that I am not alone in believing that the future is bright for Evansville Baseball.
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Blog Entry #3 - April 3, 2008
A lot has happened since my last blog entry – most important of which is this: we have started winning games. As I am writing, we have won back to back games for the first time all season and are looking forward to taking that momentum into this weekend’s conference series with Illinois State.
The days of the last two weeks have been filled with tarp duty, snowy road trips, broken buses, and finally -- Missouri Valley Conference baseball. With all the spring rain in the Evansville area, we have spent many hours putting the tarp on, and taking the tarp off of Braun Stadium. Despite all the water, the field has been in pretty good shape and the recent warm temperatures are making it feel like baseball again.
In the last two weeks, we began conference play. We opened with a series at home against Bradley in which all of the newcomers got their feet wet. We lost the series, but played Bradley close throughout. We spent last weekend in frigid Northern Iowa. When we got to the field on Friday, the UNI players were busy removing snow from the outfield. Needless to say, it was cold. After a doubleheader Saturday, we were preparing to come back home, when we learned our bus had broken down. We were fortunate enough to spend an extra couple hours enjoying the frozen tundra of the Northern Iowa plains while we waited for a new bus.
Although we lost the series to UNI, I think we learned a lot about ourselves and our team. That road trip set us up for what has been our most successful week of the season so far. We have won our last two games and have played well doing so. Our team feels that we are turning a corner in our development and we are very excited to see what the rest of the season will bring.
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John--
I enjoy reading your blog and hearing your thoughts regarding your new experiences. Keep up the good work.
Kathy
Posted on April 7, 2008--12:52 PM
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Blog Entry #2 - March 17, 2008
Since I have last written, the Aces baseball team has been very busy. We took a spring break road trip to Charleston, South Carolina and we finally were able to play some games at home. Also during that span, we were able to pick up our first victory of the year.
The trip to South Carolina was a very memorable road trip for many of us. The Charleston area is a very beautiful place to visit. Located right on the coast, the coaches got us set up in a hotel that was right on the beach, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. This was probably the biggest highlight of the trip. It was extremely nice to be able to open up the windows to the sound of waves crashing and get a nice breeze from the ocean. Something about the beach makes it feel like summer.
Aside from spending time enjoying our days out of school and visiting a new place, we did play some baseball. We picked up our first victory of the season on Saturday night as we beat UNC-Asheville 6-3. We were unable to win our other two games in Charleston, although we played pretty well. We lost to The Citadel 13-8 and to Wright State 13-3. Despite the losses we enjoyed our trip immensely.
When we returned home, we were finally able to make our debut at Braun Stadium and play some home baseball. We have since played 5 games at home and unfortunately dropped five close decisions to Indiana-Southeast, Lipscomb, Central Michigan, Cleveland State and North Dakota State.
Although the wins have not been coming for our young team, we have been able to see marked improvement in our play. Most notably, our pitching has really stepped up their performance in the last week or so. The biggest thing we need to improve on is becoming more consistent and playing well for an entire game. We have not yet been able to play a full nine innings of solid baseball, but we all feel that once we can do that game in and game out, we will be a tough team to beat.
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Blog Entry #1 - March 4, 2008
The beginning to the baseball season for the Purple Aces has started out much like the weather outside – COLD. We are a very young team, one that has more than 20 new faces this year, including myself. At this point in the season, we are all learning how to play at the Division I level, especially the new guys.
Our season so far has been filled with ups and downs and the challenges that come with inexperience. To our credit, the attitude of our team has remained upbeat and positive and everyone is working their tails off to get better. We have had times of good hitting, good defense, and good pitching. When we get all of those to happen at the same time, things will start to take off. Although we currently stand 0-7 on the season, we are seeing improvements and we are becoming a tougher team everyday.
Our season began with a weekend trip to Rock Hill, South Carolina and three games against Winthrop, Gardner-Webb and nationally-ranked St. John’s University. Although we lost all three of the contests, we had an enjoyable trip and we gave St. John’s all they could handle on the last day of the trip, losing 3-1.
When we returned home to Evansville, we headed to Nashville, Tennessee to take on one of the top programs in the nation . . . #5 Vanderbilt. For the second time in 3 days, we gave a nationally-ranked program all they could handle, but we fell 4-3 in a game that was largely played in falling snow.
Last weekend, we were all looking forward to our home opener with Radford University. However, the cold, wet weather of the tri-state forced us to move the series to Radford in Virginia. The quick change in travel plans was only the beginning of a rough weekend, as we were then swept in the three-game series. Despite the losses, a few positives can be taken from last weekend’s losses. Our offense seemed to warm up, as we scored 17 runs in the series and our team displayed a lot of character and heart. We were down at several different points during the weekend, and each time we were able to rally to get back into the game.
We are looking forward to righting the ship and getting into the win column this week with a single game at nationally ranked Kentucky and three games this weekend in Charleston, South Carolina against The Citadel, UNC-Asheville, and Wright State. Hopefully the warmer climate of the south will help us continue to improve and spark the Aces to some wins.
