North Carolina State University Athletics
2006 Road Warriors: Blair Harkey
3/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Softball
March 17, 2006
When we arrived in Jacksonville the day of the game what do we see before us but a "Pound the Pack" car. There are posters everywhere announcing that they will host a bashing of this car during the fifth inning of our first game. That is exactly what they did....the whole game they could be heard hammering this junker.
Once we loaded the bus to leave UNF and head to the hotel Larry, our bus driver, gets stuck in the sand. Our front right tire runs off into the sand and all we can do is spin. But we couldn't just sit at the field and wait all night so we called our parents and we all have to pile into the vehicles. Let's just say these rides were a little cramped.
When we got to Clearwater the first thing we did was EAT! That is our favorite thing to do. Coach Navas had a little treat planned for us. Since she grew up in Florida she ate a lot of Cuban Food and her mom also makes some killer plantains. So she took us to one of her favorite hometown restaurants for some Cuban food. After we got our bellies full we headed to the beach for the rest of the day. My family had all been there all day and I promised my little nephew Bryson I would build a couple sand castles with him so I ran down the beach with him to get his toys. Patrick brought along a Frisbee so him, coach Jay and some of the girls enjoyed a friendly little game in the sand.
Thursday we went 1-1. We started the day off against number 2 in the country Tennessee. Later that day we played Hofstra; beating them and getting a little long overdue revenge from the first year.
We started out Friday with a win against Buffalo. After that game we had a long fought battle with UIC but we came up a little short. It must be something with losing and our bus, because after that game our bus broke down at a stoplight near the fields. After sitting on the bus for about twenty minutes, Coastal Carolina came to our rescue. Their bus came by and we jumped on with them to go eat. Allison was a very happy girl this night because we stopped at her all time favorite BURGER KING!!! They then took us back to the hotel and dropped us off. The next morning Larry had our bus back up and running!!!! YAH!
We got seeded in the silver bracket after the results of pool play. We had a game at one against Temple, and immediately after we won that we had to rush over to a different set of fields to take on Long Island. We won this game to advance to championship Sunday. This is the day we live for. Our first game was against an ACC rival Virginia Tech. This was a hard fought battle for both teams. We won it in the bottom of the eighth inning putting us in the championship game against Purdue.
But once again Mr. Poore's brownies were clutch in this situation. Everyone was starving and this was just the boost we all needed. Let's just say we dove in. We came out with a fire in this game. We refused to go home with another second place finish. After the big win we all had to say a quick goodbye to all our parents and rush to the hotel. It was 2:00 and coach said we had 30 minutes to get back to the hotel, shower and be back on the bus. But this time we get stuck between some trees because the parking lot was so full! But we made it out, only after taking a little bark along for the ride.
When we got back to the hotel it left each girl about 2 seconds a piece to rinse off and run to bus. This brings us to the end of our 11-day road trip. We all love each other but we have had all we can take. We are ready to unpack these bags and sleep in our own beds. We ended up with a 13-4 record on this trip. Way to go Pack!!!!!! We will all sleep good tonight!
