Flowing in Florida
The baseball team is staying in Tampa, Florida for the week and will be playing a total of seven games. Our temporary home is the Days Inn right next to the St. Petersburg Airport. Real luxurious place. My bed-buddy for the week (in a smaller than average double bed) is none other than Dylan (the Destroyer) Smith. J-Chen, Travis, Kooi and Jimmy Gill round out the elite fourth floor crew. Coach X (Exeter) has everyone else on floor 2 so he can keep an eye on them. Team trips on off days have thus far included a Detroit Tigers vs. Toronto Blue Jays spring training baseball game and a day at Indian Rocks Beach for a football tournament.
We are off to a 3-1 start in Florida (3-2 overall). Pretty solid. We played a doubleheader on Sunday against SUNY-IT and another on Tuesday against Cazenovia (who?). Game 1 against SUNY-IT was...interesting. Neither team pitched well (we walked something like 13 guys) and the lead changes were crazy. We were up 7-0, then they scored 14 unanswered runs which led to our six-run comeback in the bottom of the 7th (doubleheaders during spring training consist of two 7-inning games). Conor Casey ripped a walk-off single to make the final 17-16.
Game 2 was a step forward for us. We executed all three areas of the game. Neal Mejia got his first collegiate win in a complete game effort. He's a stud.
Game 1 of the doubleheader vs Cazenovia (seriously, who?? I am officially re-naming them Caz.) really tested our character as a team. The ump wasn't giving our starter Jimmy Gill any calls, even though Jimmy was hitting his spots right on the corners (I swear he was, I have a perfect view from center). Anyways, we ended up down 4-1 after a rough 3rd inning. We battled back and found ourselves down 8-6 in the top of the 7th (it would have been tied at this point if not for a few good defense plays by Caz). Well, we pu t up a 5-spot in the top of the 7th (freshman James Bernard drilled a single to tie the game) and we ended up winning 11-8. Good game. The second game was a rough one. Our pitchers fell behind in the count too often which gave Caz plenty of good pitches to hit, and they took advantage of them. We also allowed too many extra baserunners via walks. We live, we learn.
Overall, we've been playing well down here. If you were to compare the team we have now to what we used to have, it would be like night and day. Our hitting has been solid. Conor, T-Nak, Travis, Eisenlohr and Mendelson have really been hitting the ball well. Our pitching and defense have vastly improved, too. We have an impressive freshman class, competing for time with the core group of upperclassmen. Coach X has been pushing us hard with the help of the assistant coaches, Middy and T.J. (at times they make a hilarious trio). We aim to keep raising the bar in all three aspects of the game with the goal being a Centennial Conference playoff berth.
--Dalane
Scott Dalane is a senior captain and the center fielder for the 2008 Swarthmore baseball team. He is a Computer Science major and a native of Vernon, N.J. Dalane and the Garnet are in Tampa, Fla. for spring break.