Senior outfielder Sam Westendorf has taken on blogging duties this year for the UP baseball team, and he'll be checking in from time-to-time throughout the season. Make sure to bookmark portlandpilots.com/baseballblog and follow Sam and the Pilots all season long.
ENTRY #2
Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012
What’s going on Pilot Fans? We just finished our first two games of the season against Stephen F. Austin in Beaumont, Texas. The Pilots got off to a hot start this weekend with an offensive outburst highlighted by senior shortstop Kris Kauppila, senior catcher Ben Grubb and sophomore Turner Gill. Both Kauppila and Grubb had 3 hits, with Kauppila having 3 RBI’s. Turner turned it on in the final game of the weekend going 4-5 with a home run, two doubles and a single with 4 RBIs. Senior starting pitcher Kyle Kraus went 7 untouchable innings giving up just 3 hits and 0 runs. Chris Johnson gave us a solid outing on Sunday going 5 1/3 innings to get the W. Outside the stellar performances by our seniors, a few first timers made names for themselves this weekend. Freshmen Caleb Whalen and Cody Lenahan both had 1 hit, and in his first career start, Jeff Melby had 2 hits and 2 RBI’s. Whalen added to his success by hitting his first career home run in Sunday’s game. Everyone contributed to this weekend’s wins and got us off to a great start to 2012.
Now it is time to look back on last weekend’s Diamond Dinner. Coach Sperry and helpers put on quite an event which culminated with the great talk from Dan Wilson. My teammates and I had just played a 14 inning scrimmage the day of the Diamond Dinner. It was one of our final preps for the season, and we had to make sure everyone got some reps to get ready for our season opener last Friday. Once we finished the game, we had 40 minutes to shower, run home and get in our suits before we met Dan at the Chiles Center for a talk before the dinner. From the moment we saw our coaches back in the Chiles Center, until the end of the night, we all began to realize a common remark being made to all of us. Many people joked about us “Cleaning up pretty nicely”, or once they saw our all-star lineup of girlfriends a comment that Coach Stebbins said to me, who I’m sure he said to many others, “Geez Westy, your girlfriend is way out of your league.” For those of you who were not able to attend the event and didn’t see us dressed up in our suits and our beautiful girlfriends; Dan talked with everyone in attendance about the importance of education, the important roles of each player on a team, and finally the thrill he had during his major league career. After talking with the team for about thirty minutes before the dinner kicked off, he shared some of the same lessons with everyone in attendance and also shared some stories of legendary teammates Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Jamie Moyer, Jay Buhner and Alex Rodriguez. Dan had some great stories about each player, memories of his own, and words of wisdom for us players, who aspire to play in major leagues just like he did.
Having gone over the Diamond Dinner, and the first weekend of our season, we continued to make the most out of our trip in Texas. My roommate for the trip, Chet Thompson had already made his mark on the Lone Star State before the first night was over. Chet and pitcher Colin Feldtman went on a run once we got to the hotel, just to get the body going after being on a plane all day. Unfortunately this time, a run down the road turned into an unanticipated learning lesson. Chet and Colin saw the red and blue lights of Texas State Police Officer come up behind them to first wonder what exactly they were doing, and since they are from out of state, let them know that running with the traffic on the side of the road is illegal in the state of Texas. Who would’ve thought that running could get you pulled over? Anyway, we have put the first weekend behind us, and are looking forward to our opponent this afternoon. We play fellow Portland school, Concordia University. The game has been moved and will now take place at the Cavaliers new stadium. Coach Sperry is sending out the rising star freshman left hander Travis Radke out to the mound to face the Cavaliers. Radke is making his collegiate debut, and we all look forward to seeing what he can do. Remember fans we return to Etz on Friday to take on Creighton. See you out there and Go Pilots! All In!
Stay g’ed up from the feet up,
Westy
PREVIOUS ENTRIES
• Entry # 1 (Feb. 1, 2012)
