North Carolina State University Athletics
Coach Navas Diary
3/15/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 15, 2006
What was I thinking! I think having an eleven day road trip was crazy. We played well and actually did not get sick of each other.
Our first weekend went well. We put the ball in play and banged a few out which was exciting. It is never fun to play conference opponents but in bracket play you have to do what you have to do. Playing Virginia was an exciting game. Each team had their fair share of mistakes. It was a rollercoaster of emotions because I was not happy with our defense. Our pitchers put us in great spots to get the outs and we kept booting the ball. Thanks to some timely hitting and breaks our way we won. Getting back up to play Georgia Tech was difficult. They are a great hitting team. We were a bit off and they beat us up pretty bad. All in all it was a great weekend for the program finishing in 2nd Place at the Buzz Classic.
The three movie trip to Jacksonville was tough. I wasn't that tired but my eyes were. We watched an intense movie called Arlington Road, then Walk the Line (did not like that one) and my favorite, Madagascar. I think I was the only one up the whole time.
We had a short practice on Monday to get the cobwebs out. It went well but everyone was still tired. We had a great dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, the kind that your belly hurts from laughing so much. Mr. Sims bought the kids dessert so they were happy. Laura Klem and Alycia LePage had a little birthday celebration at the shack. Pirates for a day!
Our doubleheader with North Florida went well for the first game. We really put the ball in play and scored off of great baserunning. Well, that did not happen in the second game. I got a little bit too aggressive and got Ashleigh Davis thrown out at the plate. She ripped a ball in the gap and UNF was throwing the ball to third but it was off line. Again great play if she is safe, what are you doing if she is out. We couldn't get any offense going so we lost. I was upset going into the tournament with a loss but needed to get over it quickly.
Up next was a "short" four hour trip to Tampa to eat Cuban Food, my old stopping grounds as a child. Then onto Clearwater beach for an hour of water, sun, Frisbee and wind. It was chilly but fun to watch Patrick get beat up by the Frisbee.
I finally got to see the movie Coach Carter. That was a great show, and I was ready for the tournament now.
The Adidas tournament is a big tournament around the country. I was excited to get in but not to open up with #2 Tennessee. In order to move to the gold bracket you have to be top 2 in your bracket. Tennessee is a great team. I thought we could throw them off with our pitchers and sneak a run across but my team wasn't listening. We played ok but the bobbles killed us. Abbott is a great pitcher and we only got two hits, not enough to score a run. Ok, on to game 2, Hofstra. I thought this would be the game for 2nd place in the pool. We were still not sharp but mustered enough for a win. My concerns were that Abbie was not pitching well and the offense was sluggish. Day two was Buffalo, which we still did not play well, our bright spot was that Shanna Smith was stealing some bases and her defense was starting to come around. Megan pitched well. The night cap was against UIC. They are a very good hitting team. I did not think the pitching would hold us down but I was banking on Abbie to shut them down.
Well it was an emotional game. Their coach got thrown out. They hit probably seven bloops over the infield. They did not hit anything solid but we couldn't get the outs. The centerfielder for UIC had a great throw home to save a run. Then on the way home the bus stopped and wouldn't start. It is just like adding salt to the wound. The alternator belt came loose and decided not to start up again. Our bus driver Larry was up until 1:00 am getting it fixed. Luckily, Coastal Carolina drove up next to us and picked us up. Jess Dannely (heal coach at Coastal) was nice enough to take us with them to Burger King and drop us off at our hotel.
Our final pool game against Temple went well. Shaina pitched well and we won 7-0. We only had 30 minutes to get to the other fields to start the bracket play. We were in the silver bracket because we gave up to many runs. Here we sat 3-2 and finished 4th in the pool.
Side note: I finally got to see my parents for the first time in 3 months. They live in Tarpon Springs which is about 30 minutes from Clearwater. My brother, his wife and two of my nephews came during the weekend. Finally I had someone there to see me! We had all but about four sets of parents. Dinner for 70 is tough, but fun. Everything is always better when you are winning. My Dad played golf with Abbie's dad, the twins dad and Mac's day. They had a nice day in Tarpon. Not to happy though because they saw pictures of me as a child. They were trying to use it for black mail.
Now back to the tournament. We played Long Island U, were no one is from New York. We scored in the first inning but they were threatening every inning. Abbie came in to shut them down and Megan pitched the first 3 innings. We won 4-0 but scored three in the 6th. We were now on to play ACC opponent number three this week, Virginia Tech. Angela Tincher did not pitch against us last year because she was hurt in our three game series. I was very excited to finally face her. I was in a great mood, everyone thought it was because we were going home that night but no, we were facing #23 Virginia Tech. It was a great game. They had five hits we got one. It was a pitching battle. Abbie pitched her way out of some jams but looked the best she had in a few weeks. We got a break in the International tiebreaker in the eighth inning. Shanna blooped one over the shortstop who did not come up with the play. Ashleigh scored and it was game over. I look forward to playing them again in a few weeks.
The Championship Sunday game was against a good hitting Purdue team. They had just beat Hofstra, 7-0. I was going to throw everyone at them but Megan got it done. We got our first run with Jen Chamberlin hitting an infield single and running the bases well on a bobble getting to second. Jen Patterson ripped a liner to right that got past the right fielder and under the fence, a ground rule double. Chamberlin would have scored anyway. We made some baserunning mistakes but it did not matter because Megan shut them down as we won 4-0.
Only our third tournament championship in three years. We are on our way. We really played well the last two days. I hope we can carry this into our ACC season that begins this weekend with Boston College.
I know these kids will amaze me even more.
