Nov. 5, 2007
As we head into the final week of our team practice phase for the fall, I believe that everyone would agree that we have seen tremendous growth in a significant number of players involved in workouts. It is always interesting to see the amount of progress experienced by players from the first day they arrive on campus until the first pitch is thrown in the spring.
This off-season has been no different; the team has come to the field everyday with the mentality that we must improve mentally and physically in order to compete at a high level during the season. Our practices have been high energy, competitive, and physically demanding. Everything we have done to this point has been geared around our system, TEAM (Toughness, Effort, Approach, and Mastering the Fundamentals). The entire program, players and coaches included, feel that if we can receive an A+ grade in each of these categories we will be tough to beat in the spring. As with any other team around the country, we have recognized several things as a team and individually that we need to improve on over the next few months leading up to the '08 season. As we move back into individual workouts, the coaches will spend significant time with each of us in an effort to improve these specific aspects of our game.
This will be an exciting week for Catamount Baseball, as it is finally time for our annual Fall World Series. This best-of-three series will be full of intense competition and display our team's overall progress this fall. For the Fall World Series, our roster was split into two teams. However, the process was not as simple as splitting the teams down the middle. Saturday night, the seniors, along with two juniors (JC Lyons and Drew Saberhagen), met at Coach Moranda's house in order to draft our respective teams, with the draft ceremony held later that evening in the Ramsey Center. The designated Black Squad captains included Drew Saberhagen, Barrett Shaft, and Jason Haynes. In the other dugout will be the Gold Squad, with the designated captains being Blake Murphy, JC Lyons, and myself. The draft was a very exciting and somewhat stressful 30 minutes, as you can imagine with Coach Moranda banging a hammer to signify the start of a round and Coach Mingione as the time keeper of the 90 seconds designated to make a pick.
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We encourage everyone that will be in or around Cullowhee over the next three days to stop by and catch a game or two. We guarantee that the games will be high energy and competitive until the last out is recorded. Thank you to all of the alumni and supporters who have stopped by the field this fall, we truly appreciate everything that you have done for our program.
