Reporting from Memphis

After a not so bad trip from ATL to Memphis we are here and well. A new bus with flat screen TV's made the trip tolerable. Movies of choice for the trip: Knocked Up, Boondock Saints, 300....Typical college stuff. Not much other news to report... We'll keep you updated from Memphis, land of blues and rock n' roll.

Check out the LIVE webcam from AutoZone Park, tarp is on! We're expecting rain overnight, but as long as WE do not have to pull the damn tarp, I'm OK with that.

http://www.instacam.com/showcam.asp?id=AZPTN

3/9 News and Notes

Its been a while since the last post about our season, but we are back. We have struggled to find consistency in the last couple of weeks and the Win column has eluded this team. Guys who we were counting on to step up and lead this team on and off the field have not done so. We need more from EVERYONE. Circumstances have depleted the depth of the squad but if some guys do not step up we will be forced to make some personnel changes. We have challenged them to come to practice with a renewed attitude and ready to work to be a Champion, to work on things till they can't get them wrong rather than work on things till they get them right. There's a big difference.

We travel to Memphis this week to take on SCAC favorite Rhodes in the 1st SCAC series of the year. The goal is and always will be to win a SCAC Championship, that hasn't changed. Hopefully we have learned from our early season struggles and make ourselves better.

• If anyone is traveling to Memphis we will be playing at AutoZone Park Friday at 3pm with the rest of the games at Rhodes College.
• Friday night we will be eating as a team at Alfred's on Beale Street. If any parents would like to join us please let me know as we have reservations and need a final count.
• Spring Break is coming up and we need some help with feeding the team...please contact Sara Pilger.
• LIVE stats continues to be an issue. We get the good computer back this week, hopefully it works. But RHODES should run live stats all weekend. Check out their website for info.
• Congrats to former Petrel Andy Crosby who recently got engaged!!

Congrats to Steven and Jill Bloodworth

They are the proud parents of a baby boy....Anderson Bloodworth! Bloody also played from 1999-2002.

Congrats to Dan and Leah Torrenti...

Dan and Leah welcomed their first child into the world late last night, a baby girl. Dan played for the Petrels from 1999-2002.

A little time to think...

We have just under a week until our next game so as we sit here 2-5 we have time to think about the young year so far. There has been a ton of distractions, most of which we had no control over. But seven games into the season we are headed in the right direction focused and determined at the task at hand. Here are some observations:

• Within a span of 5 days we lost both our starting SS (Matthew Cornwell) and our backup SS (Theo Stathakis). Andrew Llano who had been working mainly in left field has done a great job filling in. We hope to get Theo back in a few weeks after successful surgery on his wrist.
• We have lost several family members over the course of three months: JJ Rizzo lost his grandfather in December, Andrew Lofholm lost his grandmother three weeks ago and I lost my grandmother last week. Are deepest condolences go out to the Rizzo's and Lofholm's.
• We have been starting 6 sophomores and 3 freshmen on any given night. Of course there are going to be growing pains! Unfortunately the highs are really high and the lows are really low. One of the toughest things to do as a 19 year old in college is to stay at an even keel. We must learn to push the momentum of the highs and minimize the effects of the lows.
• Is it me or has every line drive we have hit so far gone right at someone? That's baseball, if you keep working those line drives will find some holes.
• I just want to give a quick shout out to the OU Baseball Alums! I know some of you new players/parents haven't met them, yet. But they are true Petrels with black and gold blood running through their veins. They have been in the same shoes as the current guys and to a man they will tell you that their time on the baseball field together is priceless. The tarp duties, the travel, the "Conference Specials" and everything in between. What we try to impress upon the current guys is how lucky they are to be playing college baseball! The worst day on Anderson Field is still better than the best day in a lot of places.
• Quick rundown of the SCAC East so far: Rhodes after a tough 0-3 start is now 3-3. They play Piedmont and Maryville this weekend. Every D3 Baseball source is picking them to make the college World Series. Birmingham-Southern is 3-3 and I think they are very talented, young but talented. Centre, DePauw and Sewanee begin play this weekend.

W & L Recap

Loss 7-2

John Hale was able to hold a strong General's offense to just 3 runs over six innings, but the bullpen was unable to keep it in striking distance giving up three runs in the seventh and one in the eighth. Hale was very effective getting 13 ground ball outs, and walking none.

Offensively, Brendan Pilger led off the game with a home run, Andrew Llano and Matt Anderson each had two hits but the Petrels could only muster three hits over the final four innings.

We have a nine days before our next game against Adrian College Wenesday February 28th. A little time away from the game will be good for the entire team. The season is young but its time to start playing the way we are capable. We need more clutch hits, pitches need to be made and the defense needs to make plays. Simple as that. Preparation will be key, as we enter a tough stretch of games leading into conference play.

Washington & Lee Recap

If the second pitch of the game was anything of things to come then the Petrels knew they were in for a long day. On the second pitch of the game, W&L's leadoff batter crushed a homer deep over the center field wall into the magnolia tree next to the scoreboard. The General's would launch a total of 5 homers on the day as the wind was unusaully blowing straight out to CF at about 15-20mph. The Petrels gave up 21 hits...5 HR's and 6 doubles.

Offensively Chris Lucas and Brendan Pilger had two hits apiece, Ben Giddens had two, two-out RBI singles and Andy Farrey hit his first homer of the year, a towering shot to right field.

Time to regroup, get back in the Win column. No time to hang our heads, its time for a win.

The two teams play again on Monday at NEW TIME 3pm!!

LIVE STATS and Internet broadcast will be available at www.oglethorpe.edu/athletics

Piedmont and Reinhardt Game Recap

Piedmont Recap

Loss 5-4

Tough loss for the sqaud. After Andrew Llano blasted his first home run of the year in the 4th inning the Petrels jumped out to a 4-1 lead. Starter Nick Greenfield pitched a very competative game and was the hard luck loser. Piedmont could only muster 5 hits off of Greenfield and only one of those left the infield. In fact, only three balls against him left the infield. But in the 7th Piedmont rallied with two outs for three runs on three Petrel walks.


In the ninth Cliff Cross nailed a double off of the right center field wall missing the game tying homer by inches. Andrew Lofholm was inserted as a pinch runner....Then pinch hitter Jason Mitchell singled off of the secondbasemen's glove but Lofholm was thrown out at the plate by the right fielder for the first out of the inning....A costly mistake and a misread by the coach.


A tough loss which the Petrels led most of the way and a game they probably should have won. In the end too many walks, and a bad judgement cost the birds.

Reinhardt

Loss 11-1

Our first road trip of the season did not go as planned. Maybe it was a little hangover after a tough loss, maybe it was the first road trip or maybe it was dead legs? Either way we were totally out classed by a good Reinhardt team. For whatever reason there is no excuse to not be ready to play. Early in this season we have been very up and down. We need to mature as a ball club. Reinhardt is good, but I think we are better than we showed. We need some guys to step up and play the way they are capable of. I have extreme confidence that this group can do that.

There will be some adjustments made and some guys will have to self evaluate how they are approaching the game. At 2-3 there are no worries, no panic. Keep working and keep pushing.

Up next Washington & Lee Sunday 1pm and Monday 4pm.


News: After an initial scare that we would lose Theo Stathakis for the year to a fractured wrist. It looks like he will have surgery on Tuesday and miss roughly 3-4 weeks depending on how fast he heals.

Piedmont Game

Wednesday's game against Piedmont has been moved to Thursday at 5pm!!! Rain and cold weather will make Wednesday a not so fun day to play. See you Thursday!!

SCAC Diamond Weekly

The SCAC has started a new Diamond Notes that will run every week throughout the year. Enjoy.

Diamond Notes

Doubleheader Sweep over Maryville!

Game 1 Recap: Win 3-2

John Hale went 4 strong innings allowing five hits, while striking out three and allowing two runs. But it was Sam Briend in relief picking up the win with 3 nearly perfect innings striking out two and only allowing one hit.

The Petrels offense could only muster two hits but they were timely hits. JJ Rizzo had a two out RBI in the first with a single to rightfield. But the offensive hero was Chris Lucas who was 1 for 2 with a walk, two stolen bases and scored two runs including the go ahead run in the bottom of the sixth on a well excuted 1st and 3rd double steal.

Defensively we were a little shaky, plays that have to be made in critical situations. It was a good win, games good teams have to win.

Game 2 Recap: Win 6-2

The Petrels plated three runs in the bottom of the sixth to break open a 3-2 game and beat Maryville 6-2. After Maryville retired the first two batters in the sixth Stephen Archer laced a single to right, followed by Andrew Lofholm getting hit by a pitch. Then Matt Anderson delivered the big blow with a two-run double over the left-fielders head scoring both Archer and Lofholm. Chris Lucas was 2 for 4 including a double, a run scored and a RBI. Andrew Llano continued his hot hitting going 2 for 2 and on the young season is hitting .667. Stephen Archer had two hits.

Sean Tuttle was very effective on the mound throwing 6 innings and striking out six while only allowing two runs. Nick greenfield came on to earn the save in the 7th.

It was a much better game defensively for the Petrels as they bailed themselves out of a couple of jams with two key double plays. Lofholm also threw out the only attempt of a stolen base during a sweet strike-em out, throw-em out double play in the first.

Next up is Piedmont Wednesday at 5pm.

Note on the LIVE stats: we continue to have software and harware problems and we are trying to resolve the problems. We used two different laptops yesterday and we kept running into problems. We are doing everything we can to get them up and running ASAP. Please be patient.

Have a great Petrel Day.

Broadcast Schedule and Links

Below is the link to listen LIVE to the internet broadcast. When you are on the page scroll down and you will see the baseball schedule and to the right a Listen link. For live games simply click on Listen. Directions to download the required software is on the page. Approximately 48-72 hours after the game a podcast link will appear next to the game. These are availabel to listen to any time and also available for you to download to your computer.

Starting next Tuesday and going every Tuesday through the season will be the Baseball coaches show hosted by Hoyt Young. During the show we will discuss the team and other baseball related issues.

I suggest testing out the system before Saturday's game. Stretch internet who runs the program offers support through their website.

http://www.oglethorpe.edu/athletics/listen_live.asp


Brick Faucette and Tim Ernst will call the action on Saturday.


LIVE stats: http://www.oglethorpe.edu/athletics/live_stats/baseball/mens/xlive.htm

Apology and Game Recap

30 minutes before game time the laptop crashed. We did in fact play the game but it wasn't pretty. Lagrange put up four runs in the first in route to a 14-2 whipping of your Petrels. Here is the recap.

First, I would not like to think about this game too much so I'm going to keep it short.

Panthers 14 Petrels 2

The Panthers plated four runs in the first inning, three in the third and four in the fourth en route to a 14-2 win. OU starter Nick Greenfield never could find the plate and fell behind in the count which led to his rough outing. Overall the Petrel pitching staff walked 10+ batters and hit three more. Sam Briend threw two solid inning of relief and Casey Kuebler became the first Petrel hurler to record outs with both arms in the same inning. He retired the first two hitters in the 7th inning throwing left-handed and then retired the last hitter throwing right-handed.

At the plate Matthew Cornwell, Cliff Cross, Stephen Archer, and Chris Lucas each had hits but the offense could not muster any rallies.

The defense was very dissapointing with 5 errors in the field, 4 by three different secondbasemen. We also did not make several plays in the field that we should have made.

Overall it was an awful night with very few bright spots. Almost the entire roster made an appearance. Besides the loss the laptop crashed, the music system stopped working, and the Toro ran out gas. Thankfully we didn't sustain any serious injuries. Time to pick ourselves up, swallow our pride and get after Maryville on Saturday. 1 down 40+ more games to go!


Notes:

• Sorry again to all of those loyal fans who tried to tune into the LIVE stats. We should be up and running by Saturday. We look to have EVERY single game, home and away with LIVE stats.
• Internet Audio Broadcast of Petrel Baseball games start this Saturday as we will broadcast LIVE, game 1 of the Maryville doubleheader. When I have the final broadcast schedule I will post it here. From what I'm hearing there will be four broadcast teams. Should be fun. Remember most annoucers our current students!!

Game Time on Saturday is 1pm

Time CHANGE!!!!

Wednesday February 6th's game against LaGrange has been moved to a 6pm start due to inclement weather.

Pictures from Workday!

Home dugout at the start of the cleaning. We have more leaves and pine cones on our field than any other field in America!

Nice and clean. I can't tell you the stuff we found in the dugout. I think we found an old sock from Candy LaRue! He graduated in 1999.

L to R: Nick "Ladies Man" Greenfield, Brad "She's a" Brickhouse and Matthew "You complete me" Cornwell.

Two St. Pius parents unload some heavy gravel, while Mr. Greenfield thinks to himself "How many rocks can the John Deere hold...1,2,3...."

Mr. Llano with that patented smile and laughing at one of the guys jokes.. What he's really thinking about is that cigar he's about to smoke! I would be smiling, too.

St. Pius Saturday school. When I was in Catholic school, detention was copying the rules over and over...What this picture doesn't show is the kid in nice dress pants and a shirt and tie! Did he call Big Dern for the dress code on work day?

"The Hill" is much better! We found 8,723 baseballs buried in the growth. One had a faint note "Thanks for the sandwich, it helped me rip some hits today" and the signature, Hack Hermance 1938.

One Week to Go...

A week from now we should have a better idea of who will run for the President of the US........Oh, wrong blog. A week from now the LaGrange Panthers will come pranching into Anderson Field for the Opening of the 2008 season. There is much work to be done before then, but the guys are ready to start playing someone else.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate for us to go live Saturday (1pm) and Sunday (10am) this weekend. If you are in or around town stop on by and get an early preview of your Petrels!

Petrels to play in Red Birds Nest

When your Petrels visit Memphis, TN for a 4-game set against Rhodes March 14th-16th, the first game of the series will be played at AutoZone Park home of the Memphis Red Birds, AAA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Thanks goes out to Rhodes for setting up the unique opportunity to play in one of the best Minor League Stadiums in the country. AutoZone Park is located in the heart of downtown Memphis. Gametime is set for 3pm on March 14th.

A Busy Weekend...

We have a lot to catch up on, so we'll get right into it.

First, great weekend for recruiting as we hosted 260+ JEO students, including a couple of potential baseball recruits. JEO is OU's scholarship competition weekend where highly qualified students come to Atlanta for a couple of days and compete for the ultimate award of a full scholarship for four years (actually compete for several awards). This year Oglethorpe rolled out the red carpet with a fantastic cocktail hour and dinner at The 755 Club at Turner Field Saturday night. I will say right now Anderson Field looks way better than Turner Field! No joke....but that will change in about two months. NCAA rules prohibit me talking about our recruits but we hope to see you in the fall at Oglethorpe.

Workday was a huge success! A HUGE Thank You goes out to John and Sara Pilger who organized the event. Also, thank you to all the parents who braved the chilly temps and those who sent good wishes and provided lunch. Gravel was spread, dirt was moved and those St. Pius detention kids did a heckuva job on the hill. Thanks to Coach Winland for his help!

On to the Petrels: Three days of live action where the pitchers threw two innings each and we saw the hitters in game like action. We are very pleased with the progress of the team and the effort the guys are giving. I thought we hit fairly well considering this was the first live pitching of the season and the blustery conditions. Defensively we got better and better each day culminating in a error free game today. The little things like cutoffs and relays continue to get better. Pitching was solid all three days. Much improvement is needed but its a good start. We have so many options to go lineup wise, and it would be very hard to pick a starting nine as of today. 9 Days to the Opening game we have a long way to go.

We Roll On...

We go live today for the first of three consecutive days of intrasquad action. The weather has been tough but the guys have fought through it. We continue to work hard pushing these guys every step of the way. After this weekend we should a little bit more about ourselves.

Big Workday Saturday hope to see everyone out and about!!

Wintry Mix

The weather man said zero accumulation....now 1.5 inches is nothing and I'm not very good at math but 1.5 is greater than 0.

Calling all future broadcasters!

This year we have added the Live Internet broadcast to our game day experience. What we need are a few good voices to send the Petrel games around the world over the Internet. If any one is interested in becoming the next Vin Scully or Haray Carey please contact me, ASAP. Right now we are short a few broadcasters which may mean less games over the net. So, if you are in the area and wanna help out, step on up!

Day 1

Day 1 is in the books. As always the first day of practice was chilly and windy. But is was good to get out on the field and get started. I would say the guys as a whole looked a little rusty, and in some cases a little cold (especially the Florida boys!) Long way to go and a lot of work ahead of us.

On another note: The team will be taking part in some community service next Monday, MLK Day. We will be heading down to Southview Cemetery (burial place of Martin Luther King, Jr's parents) to work with Trees Atlanta in a cleanup and tree planting project. If you would like to help out please give me a call or email.

The Time is Here!

First off, Happy 2008 to all the Petrel Fans out there! Its been awhile but the blog is ready to go! Oh, and so are your Petrels! Practice starts Monday the 14th with the conditioning test at 2pm followed by the first practice of the year. I promise tons of updates and more player posts.

A few News worthy Items:

• The 2008 roster will open up with 26 players. 1 Senior, 1 Junior, 13 Sophomores and 11 Freshmen. There will be 13 total pitchers with 4 lefties.
• We added a transfer at the break, Andy Farrey. He is a local guy from Chamblee High School and can play the outfield, 1st base and he also pitches.
• Parents and players workday Saturday January 26th!! We need your help and support for a fun day of cleaning up "The Hill", the upper parking lot and other fun projects. John and Sara Pilger have taken the lead, look for more info coming soon!