Tom Mieczkowski

Past Entries

Entry 1

Entry 2

Entry 3

March 15, 2004

The last two weeks have been a blur.

It started with a win over a solid Southern Polytechnic State squad in which Steve Zaychik notched another win with 6.2 scoreless innings of work. But if you ask Zaychik he would say that his most impressive stat was his eight strikeouts. Little did Zaychik know that he would soon be outdone by Will "All I do is win" Carr, but we will get to that in a minute.

A couple days pass and we're off to scenic Sanford, Florida, in hopes of winning the UAA title outright and staying undefeated. Armed with the offense, defense, and our bus driver, we were ready to go to war. We knew it would be tough having to face Brandeis (Mass.) and Washington University in St. Louis both twice but we were confident.

The first game, against Brandeis, we found ourselves in a 3-0 hole, but the offense showed up as Sam Cunningham dropped a solo bomb to pull the game even and we scored two in the top of ninth to win 6-4. Will Carr earned his fourth win of the season and Keith Meizler picked up the save.

Our second game followed in similar fashion. We find ourselves in a 5-3 hole going into the top of the ninth against the University of Rochester, but this time Ryan Lollar smoked a ball that the Rochester shortstop booted to start the rally. Justin Gordon reached on a second consecutive error by the shortstop and by this time Rochester knew it was in trouble.

It's hard to think who didn't have a hit in that inning but when it was all said and done we had tallied eight runs and won 11-5. Congratulations go to Rich Babb who won his first collegiate game.

Washington University in St. Louis was next and even with their hideous uniforms from the 1970s they still were not able to lick us. Aaron Rosdal, Andrew Pinckney, and Rob Segear all tallied multi-hit games as we won this game 8-5. Zaychik turned in another impressive pitching performance and Meizler came in to earn another save.

At 3-0 in the tournament and 14-0 overall, at this point we weren't going to let Brandeis ruin our perfect record. Our bats exploded for 16 hits, but Brandeis matched us hit for hit. A clutch bases-loaded triple in the fourth by Aaron Rosdal proved to be huge. Timely pitching from Jason Glushon, who garnered his first collegiate start, as well as Anthony Vidal, who earned his first collegiate win pitching five strong innings, and Tyler Shearon who closed the game out, earned us a big win.

As we began to get close to a championship we almost encountered a bump in the road with Case Western Reserve. Kris Herring pitched exceptionally well, but our bats weren't giving him any support. We let Case hang around until our half of the seventh when we scored six runs and then followed up with two in the eighth to win 11-2.

The offense banged out 15 hits in all, and our stealing ability showed by swiping nine in all with three each from Pinckney and Barrett. In the end, Kris Herring was now 2-0 and we were 5-0 in the tournament.

The UAAs ended with us steamrolling of Washington. The offense belted 16 hits as we jumped up 7-0, however Wash U. played tough and scored six runs, but then we added four more and won 11-6.

Brye Adler pitched the first inning scoreless before giving way to Will Carr who pitched 7 2/3 innings giving up only two earned runs. But in very uncharacteristic behavior Will "All I do is Win" Carr struck out 10 batters leaving Steve Zaychik a bit salty and bitter. On top of his strikeouts, Will recorded his fifth win moving to 5-0 on the season.

With that win we won the UAA tournament and for the first time in team history went undefeated in Florida. The team felt so good that we decided to sweep Savannah College of Art and Design (Ga.) for good measure to move to 19-0, but I'll let Sam Cunningham tell you all about that next week because I am tired.

On a side note, on behalf of the team I would like to thank all the parents who were able to take time from their busy work schedules and root us on in Sanford. We had more support than any other team and your trademark chant of E-M-O-R-Y! in the seventh inning of each game won't be forgotten any time soon. Also, I would like to thank the parents who weren't able to make it, but waited by the phone to hear news on the Emory Baseball "Flying" Eagles.

Tom Mieczkowski is a sophomore from West Chester, Pa. He would love to answer e-mail questions from Emory recruits and fans.