Welcome to the 2013 Monmouth University Softball Blog, an up-close look at the Hawks as told by the players on the team. Each week, one of the student-athletes will give their insight into the season and provide commentary and candor into the events that make up the year.
7th Entry: Senior DH/Right Fielder Kate Kuzma
Hey there Hawk fans! It's Kate Kuzma writing to you one last time. What a great week we had; 4-0 in conference play and one step closer to the NEC Tournament! Tuesday we got back to work at practice and our traditional "AquaHawk" workout. Lauren Sulick and Kayla thought it would be a good idea to cannonball on Tish and Alicia to get them soaked. Looks like payback is in order this week. Saturday, we headed to Maryland to take on Mt. St. Mary's for their Senior Day. Our 6 seniors were recognized with a beautiful bouquet of flowers as well. In the first game, Raelynn belted her first career home-run, which happened to be a grand slam, and she "Cholo-ed" around the bases. Way to go Rae! We took the second game, making it a sweep, and celebrated with Frosty's! This weekend we finish out conference play and the seniors get to play at home one last time. Let's take 4!
6th Entry: Senior Catcher Kayla Weiser
Hey Hawk fans,
This has been a good week starting with our 2 game sweep against LaSalle and finishing it up with a 2 game sweep against CCSU on Sunday. This week we got 2 days off in a row and we all got a much needed rest. Some of us spent some quality time in the ice bath on our days off. For those of you who do not know what a full body ice bath feels like picture jumping into the artic swimming with the polar bears and penguins. But I have to admit you feel less sore when you're done. Some of us decided to take the warm root on our days off and went to the beach to soak up sun. Some us went the therapeutic root and got a massage and did our nails. Don't worry even though we had 2 days off we still got our weekly pool workout in and Jordan was once again forced to get her hair wet. On Sunday we had the treat of having the Eatontown 10 and under girls come to our game. I could hear them cheering behind the plate the entire second game. We met with 3 of them after the game and we all signed a ball for them to keep. It made us remember when we were that little and we dreamed of being where we are at today. After our two great wins on Sunday Coach Mac treated the team to some quality ice cream at Carvel. The strawberry ice cream was delicious. That's all for this week. Stay tuned for next weeks blog.
Kayla
5th Entry: Junior Center Fielder Shannon Fitzgerald
Hey Hawks fans! Another long week of softball with a total of 6 games comes to an end! We started off the week right with a sweep against Penn, although it wasn't the warmest of weather we managed to make the best of being out on the field and by the second game we were all hitting machines! It was as if the colder it got outside the more hits we had. I think a can speak for several of my teammates that that was probably the coldest weather we have ever played in. With the sun going down, I have never struggled so much to stay warm in a softball game like I did that day! Despite the cold, we enjoyed playing at Penn's softball complex with a gorgeous Philadelphia city backdrop behind right field. After the game we continued the Philly spirit and stopped at Abner's Cheesesteaks, which is always such a treat. Me being from California, it's not very often you get to enjoy a true Philly cheesesteak sandwich! Once we had our sandwiches on the bus, warmed up our bodies again with some cuddling and bundling up, several of us (including me) had a nice snooze until we got back to school looking forward to our conference games that weekend.
On Saturday we faced Robert Morris with unfortunately two tough losses at home. After a team-chat after the games were over, however, we discussed how we could learn from our mistakes and put the past behind us to focus on our next games. Sure enough we bounced back with an aggressive approach at the plate and solid pitching and defense against Wagner to pull out two wins! Perhaps it was our in between game sweets we stashed in the dugout that gave us an extra something (AKA blow-pops, cookies, rice crispy treats, chocolates). The one of many things that I love about our team is that everyone has a sweet tooth, which makes me feel right at home! Anyway, when we left Staten Island to go back to Monmouth we made our typical food stop at Chipotle for dinner – the perfect place to go to in order to fill up a hungry softball team quickly and efficiently – and it always hits the spot!
Well, it feels good to end this week on a good note! Visit our blog next week for some more as we continue to work through our season with conference games!
4th Entry: Junior Left Fielder Alicia DeSanto
Hey hawks fans! After our first home games last weekend we had a few tough days of practice along with a pool workout to prepare us for our weekend in Connecticut. The bus ride was short compared to our previous trips this season. It was just long enough for us to watch a movie and coach picked The Legend of Bagger Vance. It was a good old sports movie that most of us had not seen, and it got us into the competitive mindset for our games this past weekend. We started the weekend slow with a tough loss but then were able to win 3 in a row to finish the weekend. In the midst of our games at Sacred Heart's beautiful new field we realized that their dugouts were quite slippery. This lesson was learned by multiple players who fell, (our metal spikes are tough to walk in) including but not limited to some nasty spills displayed by Raelynn and Kayla. We of course made sure everyone was alright before we got a good laugh at them. After our two wins we had a surprise for Coach Louie. We all had hair to match hers! (Pictures are available on all Monmouth Softball social media pages.) We had another good laugh before we loaded back on the bus to head home. We got back to Monmouth Saturday night when some of us road tripped home for Sunday to spend Easter with our families and others spend Easter with their teammates! We have another day of practice before our next games at the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday and I am especially excited to play close to my hometown where I will get to see a few of my family members and friends! Hopefully the next blogger will be able to update you with some wins! Thanks for reading!
3rd Entry: Senior Pitcher Jordan Barnett
Hey Hawk fans! It is finally our off day after our long Spring Break where we played ten games in six days. We ultimately ended up going 4-6, but we finished our week how we wanted to; with 3 conference wins. However, before we get to that, I know you all are dying to hear about our five wonderful days in Florida where the sun was shining, the temperatures were perfect, and we all got the infamous “softball” tan we love so much! We started our trip out Sunday close to home for Tish and Alicia when we flew out of Philadelphia International Airport. Our flight was delayed for a short time, but there was no lack of Starbucks to go around for everyone. We may have had three or four bags a piece, but we made it to Florida eventually. First stop on the list of course is food. Coach Louie took us to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner which was amazing. We checked into our hotel that night and were up early Monday to practice after a long day of traveling. It was so nice to practice outside in shorts and a t-shirt and soaked in all the sun we could. After a great practice we ended our day with a little “conditioning” also known as Duck, Duck, Goose. Needless to say, we are even competitive at that game. Tuesday we started our day by taking our team photos at Daytona Beach since Hurricane Sandy didn't allow us to do that at our own beach in the fall! Look for some incredible photos to start hitting our website soon, but if you want a sneak peak check out our MUSB Twitter! To be honest after Tuesday the days seemed to have blended together, but here are a few the most exciting things that happened on our trip. In between our pool conditioning and hot tubing we layed out by the pool and got a tan while back at home New Jersey was getting snow. We took some time to go to Daytona International Speedway to take pictures which was very cool. We can't forget the queens of dessert on our team, Shannon and Kayleena, so naturally the team ordered the best cookie dessert at dinner one night. The amount of pictures, videos, and dancing that took place on this trip definitely beat any record there might have previously been! Other important things included seeing pictures of Rae's dancing days, picking the freshman walkouts for our first home games, and living through a monsoon at UCF where we had a rain delay in the top of the 7th with 2 outs, and an 0-2 count while Kayla was at bat (She scored 2 RBIs).
To end our trip we frantically raced to Jacksonville Airport from our games through 5 o'clock traffic to make our flight. To our credit my teammates are very efficient travelers, minus a pair of game pants, bat bag, and Id almost being forgotten, we made our flight. The flight home was a breeze with a layover in Atlanta, Lauren and Kaitie hating flying, and Jill pretending to be the flight attendant. We arrived in Philly almost at midnight, and wouldn't you know at the stroke of 12 the team embarrassed me by singing Happy Birthday to me as beautifully as ever in front of the entire airport. I love you all! We were back at practice Friday afternoon to get ready for the two most important games up to this point in our season. We knew that our true character and off season conditioning would be put to the test for our first conference games on Saturday and Sunday. Lauren pitched an incredible game to beat FDU in game one Saturday. Also coming up big was Tish, going 3-3 with a lead -off triple to start the game. Unfortunately we lost game 2, but we were back in action Sunday against Bryant. As seniors we knew Bryant would be a big test because they swept us last year. We ended up getting both wins with key contributions from each person. After an exhausting week we finished strong! I just want to end by thanking everyone who came out to our first games this season and all the parents who flew in thousands of miles to see us. We are so thankful for all of your support! Until next time Hawk Fans I will leave you with a quote:
“A true champion is someone who wants to make a difference, who never gives up, and who gives everything she has no matter what the circumstances are. A true champion works hard and never losed sight of her dreams.” –Dot Richardson
2nd Entry: Senior Pitcher Lauren Sulick
Hey there Hawk Fans. This is Lauren writing from the bus on our way home from the UNCG game. We have currently run into some traffic at the moment, but hopefully we will be full speed and arriving home within the next few hours.
This weekend we traveled to Winthrop University. We were all so very excited for our 12 hour bus ride. We helped the long hours pass by playing some charades and watching some movies. Coach Louie also brought out her dice and had a little competition with some of my teammates. We enjoyed a nice lunch from subway, and when we arrived had an evening practice to get our bodies up and moving. After practice we headed to McAllisters, which is another one of our favorite sandwich places. After that it was off to bed to rest up for our games.
The next day we got to the field and the game ahead of us was running a little late so we got to play some Simon says and Shannon says followed by a ride on the roller coaster lead by Coach Louie. After all that fun it was time to get game ready. We played Furman for the first game and came out on top with a win. It's a good thing Jill Freese was in the bullpen with me when I realized I had to jump the fence to get to the other side. I got stuck and she had to help the grandma over the fence. After the Furman game we took on Winthrop on their home field. It was a battle til the end, but unfortunately we lost in the 8th inning in an international tie breaker by a close call from the umpire. We still think she was out. The next day we were all set to play Hartford and Dayton when Mother Nature decided to dump some giant snowflakes in South Carolina. We got to work on our dance moves for our music video which will be released before the end of the season. Be on the lookout these Hawks have some crazy dance moves. Needless to say our games got cancelled, but Coach Louie took us for a nice Dairy Queen treat in the blizzard. After that we headed back to the hotel for some study time. Then I headed out with my parents and tried a famous burger from Jack in the Box. The California girls have been talking about it all weekend and they were right it was delicious. Then it was off to the mall where the Hawks had a nice power walking session to work off all that Dairy Queen.
The next day we were up early packing up the bus to head to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for a morning game before we headed back to New Jersey. It was another close game, but we fell short in the end. Now we just have to make it through a few more hours on the bus, but we are watching Trouble with the Curve to help the time go by and we are all excited for our next food stop to pick up some pizzas. We may not have gotten all our games in this weekend, but we sure did get all our meals in! Thanks for following us and tune in next week to hear all about our tournament at George Mason University.
1st Entry: Senior Infielder Tish Derer
Hey Hawks fans! I hope you had a great Monday! Although most of us didn't get to bed until about 5 AM, we sure had a great start to our week after winning all 3 games on Sunday, and then pushed ourselves through our classes today only to enjoy our off-day from softball by taking a nap, or two.
After some disappointment last week after hearing our games had been canceled for Saturday, we remained hopeful that we'd get a chance to play on Sunday, and our wishes came true! We got up early on Saturday for a light workout before our long road trip on the cool new Monmouth bus. We started out with some homework time but then the fun came when we watched Pitch Perfect and laughed for two hours straight then settled in for a little snooze for those of us who could get comfortable.
When we FINALLY got to the hotel after a long 7 hours, we checked in with our roomies and went out to the Olive Garden for some dinner. After loading up on some pre-game pasta, we woke up early Sunday morning for the start of our 2013 season.
It was great to finally put on our cleats and step onto the field for the first time this season. All of the infielders were so happy to finally be fielding ground balls on the dirt after being indoors or on the football turf for so many weeks (we struggled a little), and the outfielders had some fun diving in the mud before the games even started. We had a great day of softball with an offensive explosion, and AMAZING pitching performances from all three of our pitchers. All of our hard work in the preseason definitely paid off (even swimming), and it showed through our hard work throughout the entire day. We never slowed down, and we're hoping to build off of our solid first weekend and carry our work ethic throughout the rest of the season.
The three huge wins definitely made the long, late trip home much more bearable. Most of us were able to sleep on the bus, finding some interesting resting spots. I personally found that lying on the floor is the way to do it, although there really isn't any comfortable way to sleep on a bus.
By the time we arrived on campus it was about 4AM and we were all both mentally and physically exhausted. We were able to get through a day full of classes and are gearing up for our second road trip of the year, a 12 hour bus ride to Rock Hill, South Carolina on Thursday. We're definitely looking forward to another week of practices and getting back on the dirt for our second round of games!
