The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Brint Hardy's Blog :: Entry 3
5/14/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
NO MORE CLASS FOR ME!!!! I am so happy and excited that I am finished with school. No more homework. No more class. No more papers. I got to tell ya it feels great. That being said, I must apologize for the delay on blog #3. I found myself quite busy as I was trying to finish up my classes and what not. So a lot happened in the last two weeks that I didn't get to write about.
The Memphis weekend was one of the more exciting experiences I have been a part of. Friday night we win with two triples by Merritt and yours truly. Cody, who had the go-ahead RBI, hit a weak-sauce ground ball to the shortstop or second baseman. That's bad. It was so long ago I can't remember exactly what happened. Although, my teammates will tell you that's not terribly surprising. I tend to forget things. We ended up scoring 3 in the bottom of the 8th to go up by 1. So we win on Friday with a single (Jamal), a pair of unlikely triples (Merritt and Hardy) and a 45 foot ground ball (Cody).
Saturday was probably the sweetest thing I have ever done on a baseball field. We lead pretty much the entire game. Memphis battled their way back to tie the game after a 5 run 7th inning. Bottom of the 9th inning rolls around with the top of the order. I knew Jon and Nick would get on and give Cody and me a chance to win the game. So Merritt leads off with a hit by pitch. Nick, who was probably pretty mad at the time, grounds in to a fielder's choice. So Nick is on first and I am walking up to the plate debating if I should lay down a drag bunt. Well, I didn't bunt. I think it was the second pitch I saw. It was a fastball right on the outer edge of the plate about belt high. I was a little late on it, but I got the barrel on it. The ball comes off the bat and I knew I got it good, but didn't know if I got it good enough. Running to first I'm saying under my breath, "go ball, get out ball, go ball!". I hear Ben Drust in the first base box screaming, "GO BALL!!" I hit first and it's still carrying and the outfielder's going back and back and back. I look up just in time to see the ball disappear behind the fence. YEAHHHHHH!!!! Everybody's going crazy. Memphis players are walking off the field and I'm flying around the bases. I don't know why I do that, but I get around the bases really fast in the rare times that I hit homeruns. So I come around third with the biggest grin on my face. I shake Coach's hand as we always do on homeruns and look up to see the guys huddling around the plate eagerly awaiting my arrival. I jump up, land on the plate, and take a beating. You kind of forget how strong you are when you're that excited. But it was worth it. A walk-off. I guess there's a first time for everything.
It's amazing how humbling baseball can be. After the Sunday game against Memphis was rained out we lost a disappointing game to Jacksonville State. So the high of Friday and Saturday came to a crashing halt on Tuesday. Coach has always harped on keeping an even keel and that's exactly why. It's very easy for the season to get away from you if you are riding the roller coaster that a baseball season can be. That being said, we are competitive people and we want to win and we were hurting after that Tuesday night loss. My friends in high school used to say, "If you fall off the horse.... get back on." Well, we got back on the horse for the Wednesday game against Jacksonville State again.
Tulane this past weekend certainly could have gone better. Friday night was a game that we never should have won. We tried to give it away, but held on to win 8-7. Saturday was the same thing, only we actually did give it away and lost 9-8. Sunday was an entirely different game than the previous two. Kyle threw really well. Certainly well enough to win. He gave up 3 runs on 2 hits. One of their two hits was a wind-blown homerun over my head after two walks that scored all three of their runs. The other side of the ball was terrible. We didn't have timely hitting and we botched two situations to score runs. One of which was me. I struck out with a runner on third and one out. You just can't do that and expect to beat a locating pitcher. I wish we could have gotten that win for K-Rob because he threw great.
This weekend we have the Rice Owls coming to town for a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday series. A little odd to have a conference game on Thursday, but nobody has school so why not? They always have a good team. They pitch really well, they play defense really well, and they beat you 5 to 3. They are a fundamentally solid team. That being said, we seem to play them really well. We beat them in the tournament last year and scored like 40 runs in our regular season series. Yeah, they are a very good team, but they aren't unbeatable and I really think we have the guys to take the game to them. It should be a fun series and I am looking forward to facing Ryan Berry who has pretty much dominated the entire country this year. They're a good team, but we're a good team. We'll see who wins.
Until next time, Brint
