Well after four amazing and wonderful years of playing baseball for WKU, it is officially over and it’s  hard to believe!  While my senior year didn’t end quite the way that I had imagined it, I think I can say for myself and my other teammates that this past year was one we will never forget.  Heading into our conference tournament, we still had an outside shot at making an NCAA Regional.  We either had to win a couple games and hope for an at-large bid or win the tournament and get the automatic bid.  However, we ran into 2 very hot teams and made too many mistakes which, ultimately, cost us in both games.  The opening round game against #1 seed FAU was very crazy from start to finish! We got down 3-0 in the top of the 1^st inning but ultimately battled back to tie it at 6-6 on a pinch hit homerun by Monte Ketchum in the top of the 9^th.  In extra innings, we managed to pitch our way out of 2 bases loaded, no-out jams to keep the game going!  In the top of the 13^th, we finally ended up scoring 2 runs to take a 8-6 lead, but unfortunately we lost in the bottom of the inning on a walk off 3 run homerun.  This loss was extremely hard to stomach and really put us in a hole for the rest of the tournament.  We had to bounce back the very next morning at 9 AM vs Florida International.  We had a 3-2 lead heading into the 7^th inning but could not manage to hold on, eventually losing 7-3 and ending our season.  We finished the season with a 35-23 record and an RPI around 40, but did not do well enough in conference play to warrant an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Even though we went 2 and out in the conference tournament, we managed to take home multiple awards at the opening ceremonies:

ALL SUN BELT CONFERENCE FIRST TEAM:

Matt Rice, Kes Carter, Rye Davis, Matt Ridings (Pitcher of Year)

ALL SUN BELT CONFERENCE SECOND TEAM:

Matt Payton

ACADEMIC ALL- AMERICA:

Matt Payton, Matt Rice, Matt Ridings

Despite our season ending earlier than we had hoped, we still had a great year and should be very proud of ourselves.  Obviously, we wish we were still playing but, we tried our hardest and came up just a little short.  Over the last couple months, I had thoughts of how hard it would be to play my last game as a Hilltopper, but it was a million times harder than I had ever imagined.  It is very emotional to know that you have played your last game with the group of guys that you have been around every single day for the last couple of years.  It is still hard to imagine that I will not be walking back out on The Nick in the fall for another season.  The last 4 years have been the most unbelievable 4 years of my entire life and I am so thankful that I got to be a part of the WKU Baseball family.  I just want to end by saying thank you to all of my teammates over the last four years and to everyone that has supported WKU Baseball.  I also want to thank my family for all the support that they have shown for me over the years. God Bless!! 

Monte Ketchum’s game tying homerun vs FAU in SBC Tournament

A year ago Rhode Island spent Selection Monday watching for their name to appear in one of the 16 NCAA Tournament regionals.

Their name would never be called, leaving the Rams at home despite a resume most experts thought had earned them an at-large bid. The selection committee’s decision would be labeled as a crime, but there was nothing Rhode Island could do after Xavier swept the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship doubleheader.

The Rams were unable to repeat their performance from last year and understand there will be no at-large bid coming their way. But they still have unfinished business after last year’s tournament upset.

“We should have taken care of business against Xavier last year, instead of leaving it to the committee,” coach Jim Foster said. “You can’t take anything for granted. When you do that, this game bites you in the butt.”

Rhode Island (30-24) has gotten some encouraging signs lately, but Foster doesn’t believe they’ve reached their potential yet. The Rams have yet to put together the entire package, though they have played well enough to finish the regular season 6-4.

One of the Rams finishing the year the strongest has been ace Tim Boyce. The senor entered the tournament on a scoreless innings streak of 34; the country’s longest this year. He saw it come to an end at 37 when La Salle scored a run in the third inning of Rhode Island’s 7-2 victory in the first round of the A-10 Tournament.

The streak included a near no-hitter last Thursday against George Washington, but fell short and has to settle for a shutout. Foster described the hit that broke up the no-hit bid as a “metal-bat hit” that found a hole up the middle.

“It would have been great,” Boyce said. “I definitely started thinking about it probably in the fifth inning as it became a reality.”

Boyce’s work has not gone unnoticed as he was named Rhode Island’s MVP and the Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Year.

“It’s a luxury knowing when he’s on the mound,” right fielder Tom Coulombe said. “I’ve never seen a run like that. He’s been unbelievable.”

With their senior ace on the mound, the Rams are very comfortable with their chances every Friday. But on the verge of what could be his last college start, Boyce is just trying to do his job.

“It’s in the back of my head,” he said Monday. “It would be nice to keep it going as long as I can, but all streaks have to come to an end.”

While Boyce’s streak is over, the Rams aren’t done yet. Rhode Island has won most of its conference series this year, and played against some of the top teams in the country, including a visit to No. 2 Virginia.

Their schedule and some bad weather, forced the Rams to play 25 games on the road to open the season. That combination has left Rhode Island battle tested and prepared for tournament play.

“We’ve shown we can play on a national level,” Foster said. “We don’t worry about our opponent; it’s more of a question of worrying about what we’re doing.”

Despite falling into the losers’ bracket with another loss to Xavier, Rhode Island believes in its ability to come back.

Especially after watching the Musketeers win the tournament from the losers’ bracket last year, a season after losing in the championship game. Now the Rams want to be that team.

“That’s what happened to Xavier,” Coulombe said. “If we do what they did to come back and get it done, I’d be OK with that.”

Well it’s finally here and we’re chomping at the bit. After 4 days off in the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ the Xavier Baseball Brothers are ready to get back on the diamond and strap it on. We have been ready to go since the beginning of this week and are anxious to finally be able to play a game. Let’s just say this week hasn’t necessarily been long, but it hasn’t gone by too quick either. We just got back from the Rhody, LaSalle game and now officially know who we are going to play; tomorrow at 3:30 we take the field against Rhode Island for a chance to redeem ourselves against them from the series we lost a competitive 2 out of 3 games a month ago.

Today we went back out to Temple and had a light batting practice and took ground balls just to stay sharp. After the practice we headed to Camden, N.J. and Campbell’s Field to watch the Rhody and LaSalle game. You can follow us all week on goxavier.com to keep up on how and what we are doing. Jenna Wilhoit, our SID, has some video coverage and interviews all throughout the week of interesting tidbits and what we do here from Philly and Camden.

Here is a picture of the stadium we are playing in with Downtown Philly in the distant.

schmidta1@xavier.edu as always

-DS

Well so far our 11 day trip to Philly has been successful. We finished out the regular season on a high note and swept St. Joe’s on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday we came out hot and won 18-1; Friday and Saturday were a little different because we used outstanding pitching and defense and won 3-2 both days.

It’s been nice having some down time in Philly since our last game on Saturday. Sunday we went to the Camden Riversharks game at Campbell’s Field, the site of the A10 tourney and the field where we played St. Joe’s last weekend. After the game we went to eat down at the world famous Pat’s and Geno’s in South Philly, which is the home to the first ever Philly cheesesteak places. After we ate we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not necessarily to look at the art, but because they were the steps that Sylvester Stallone made famous in the movie Rocky.

After having an off day from baseball completely on Sunday, yesterday we had a light practice at Temple and got to watch our pitchers take some batting practice at the end of practice. Our pitchers are rewarded with batting practice when they throw a shutout and they finally received it yesterday for the 2 shutout they threw a few weekends ago. After our light workout we headed to Lakewood, New Jersey to see former teammate Danny Rosenbaum and his Hagerstown Sun single A affiliated team play the Lakewood Blue Claws. It was nice to see Danny and we enjoyed a game in an unbelievable minor league stadium.

Today we had another practice at Temple. It was a more serious and harder working practice today as we took batting practice and faced some live pitching before we taper off and just have batting practice and take some ground balls tomorrow. We checked into our new hotel in Downtown Philly after an hour and 20 minute long drive for a 15 mile ride from Temple’s field to the city. Traffic here is unbelievable and I think we hit every single light we drove through.

Tomorrow calls for a light practice back out at Temple’s field. We’re leaving the hotel around 10:00 am and then heading across the river to Camden, N.J. to watch the LaSalle and Rhody game at 3:30. We face the winner. We’re starting to get antsy and real excited, which is a great sign. I’m very confident in our team and you can kind of just feel the energy in the atmosphere when you’re at the park. I can’t wait to get out to the field on Thursday and take it to whoever we play. If you’re around Philadelphia or the New Jersey area and you’re a Muskie fan we’d love to see you out at Campbell’s Field in Camden. We could use all support we can get in going for our 2nd striaght championship and trip to the NCAA Regional.

After a tough weekend down at Louisiana Lafayette, we were all real excited to be back at home at The Nick for our final home series of the year.  It was also the last home series ever for the 6 seniors.  It hasn’t really set in yet that we won’t play any more games at The Nick but I can say on behalf of the rest of the seniors that it was great to go out on a series win vs MTSU!  We had a short turnaround this week with our first game on Thursday night instead of Friday.  We once again got off to a great start to the weekend with a 5-1 win over the Blue Raiders.  Unfortunately, we did not carry that momentum into Friday’s game as we came up short in a 7-2 loss.  Even though we lost Friday, we still had a chance to win the series on Saturday, which is our goal for every weekend.  We came out swinging Saturday as we run ruled the Blue Raiders 15-5 and improved our record to 35-21 (16-14 in the Sun Belt).  We really needed this win to gain some momentum heading into the conference tournament this upcoming week.

Saturday was also a very special day for the 8 seniors in our program: Matt Payton, Bart Carter, Shane Cameron, Garrie Krueger, Jake Wells, Adam Reynolds, David Jones, and myself.  Senior Day is always a very special day and this year was no different.  Before the game we had a very nice ceremony honoring the group of seniors and our families.  Because last week was graduation and we were at Lafayette, they also had a special graduation ceremony on the field for the three of us that graduated this spring: Matt Payton, Adam Reynolds, and myself.  It is kind of hard to believe that this group of guys will never play another game at The Nick, but I think I can say for everyone that these past four years of playing at home have been nothing short of amazing.  It also helps that our last game at home was a 10 run win against MTSU.

Well, we finished our regular season with a record of 35-21, 16-14 in the very tough Sun Belt Conference.  I think that in my 4 years here at WKU, this is the most balanced our conference has been.  We currently have a high RPI and are still in contention for an at-large bid to a regional, but we really need to have a good showing in the conference tournament.  We finished 8^th in the conference and our first game is this Wednesday at 12:30 vs Florida Atlantic.  We also have Florida International and South Alabama on our side of the bracket.  As I’m typing this we are on our way down to MTSU for the tournament.  We have practice at 8 AM tomorrow morning (the lowest seed practices the earliest) and a banquet tomorrow night including a Home Run Derby.  Last year Chad Cregar was the winner in the Home Run Derby and this year we are hoping that Chris Bullard can make it two years in a row for the Tops!!  It’s hard to believe the season is almost over but we still feel that we have a lot of ball left and that we can get hot and make a run in the postseason.  Until next week, God Bless!!!