North Carolina State University Athletics
2006 Road Warriors: Blair Harkey
2/13/2006 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Feb. 13, 2006
After our rainy night Friday we headed back to the hotel to prepare for Saturday's two big, not to mention COLD, games.
Long games seemed to be the theme for Saturday. We didn't begin our 3:00 game until a little after 4:00. Auburn's game against Evansville was 12-6, and with the weather it felt like a football game. We all waited along the first base line huddled together in our BIG RED PUFF jackets. We had lunch at 11:00 so our stomachs were starting to growl as we waited to play Auburn. Patrick saved the day by going back to the hotel to get "Mr. Poore's brownies," extra chocolate brownies with chocolate icing and marshmallows. We always have to wait for coach to ok it, but when she said "yes", we attacked. So much for our in between game snack. That left the Gatorade bars. Sad enough the brownies made the Gatorade bars taste like cardboard.
We finally get to play the #17 ranked Tigers. In beautiful 40 degree, 40 mile an hour wind. Couldn't ask for a better experience. Playing Auburn had us all very excited. We could not wait to show everyone just what NC State Softball was all about. Ok, game over but we really played well. We made mistakes they scored on them. Seems to be our theme. Well at least we know we are beating ourselves.
We were supposed to play a doubleheader on Saturday at 3 and 5 but now the late game didn't start until 7:00 against Miami of Ohio.
This was one of the craziest softball experiences all of us have ever had. About half way through this game, what do we see? SNOW, falling heavy from the sky. It was definitely a first for all of us. EJ Hairston (the trainer) even had to break out the video camera to catch this one on film. Jess Willems even asked coach if she could take a picture, and coach said yes, I want to remember the day it froze over. Heather (Gelbard) stole a base, Miranda (Ervin) beat out an infield single and it was snowing; someone wake me up from this dream.
After taking two hard losses on the day, we can do nothing more but come out fired up on Sunday. With Abbie Sims on the mound and four first inning runs we beat Minnesota 4-1 on the final day. Finally we put some hits together to score runs. All that was left now was the trip home. Oh yeah, it was too cold for Florida State baseball and Auburn to play in Auburn as well, but we enjoyed still played and enjoyed snow flakes during Minnesota game.
We left for Atlanta from Auburn, about a two-hour drive, after the game Sunday morning. We knew we would have to hustle through the airport so we didn't miss our flight. The hour difference threw us off a bit. The coaches got to the plane after dropping off the rental vans and they were the last people to board! Once landing in Raleigh, everyone was anxious to get back to campus but we were missing one of my roommates, Megan Dalthorp, travel bags. This left us no choice but to check every bag on the way out of the bus to make sure the claim checks all matched up in hopes to find the missing bag. I guess losing only one bag in two years isn't so bad, but they will hopefully deliver her bag on Monday. Well, Jill Q (equipment manager) will have to hustle to get Meg's new uniforms for the season. Please Delta return the bag!
But we are all home safely and weekend one is over. We will hit practice hard and come out fired up for Wednesday's games against UNC Greensboro.
