Diary

Tom
Mieczkowski

Past Entries

April 5, 2004

Last week was a bit of a "heads up" for the team. It started off great for us with the new ACBA polls ranking us at No. 2 in the country. But things began to get a little rocky from that point.

We slugged out a win against LaGrange which included seven straight singles in the fourth inning and 15 total hits in a span of one and one-third innings. Josh Barrett decided to go 5-for-5 at the plate and steal four bases. His five hits and four stolen bases tied school records. In typical news, Will Carr won AGAIN with a little help from Steve "I'm the Emory Wheel's favorite" Zaychik and Keith Meizler.

Our next game was anything but an April Fool's joke. The Oglethorpe Stormy Petrels plated five runs to our four runs and handed us our second loss of the year. Despite Brye Adler's five innings allowing only one run, unearned, while striking out six, the Petrels rallied in the ninth to score three runs. While this was a gut check for the team, we knew we would bounce back over the weekend.

Next was a long bus trip to Maryville, Tenn., that began at 7 a.m. Most of you would think that we would all be sleeping and resting for the game, but the OC kept us awake. Jason "Glu-Daddy" Glushon taped the previous week's episode (because we were at LaGrange when it aired) and showed it on the bus ride to Maryville. Although this guy slept through it, the show earned thumbs up from our coaching staff.

Once we arrived at the field, we were ready to lay the wood to Maryville for the fourth time. Steve Zaychik was backed by the D and we escaped with a 4-2 win that saw Daniel Kaufman earn his first collegiate save.

That night Coach T took the team to O'Charley's sports restaurant to watch the Georgia Tech vs. Oklahoma State basketball game. While most of us enjoyed our food, there was a very upset trainer who didn't get his salad (maybe he should have ordered a steak). After a Tech victory, we headed back to the hotel to watch the Duke game. UConn made a fantastic run to win the game, but the story of the night was Chris Duhon's POINTLESS three-pointer as time expired.

Sunday came quick and Will Carr was on the mound. This time we decided to make the game interesting. We fell behind 4-0 before finally scoring three runs. Trailing 4-3 in the seventh inning, Griffin Baum took matters into his own hands and smoked a solo home run over the left field fence to tie the game.

The team picked up three more runs including a triple from Andrew Pinckney. Keith Meizler moved into second place on the school's all-time list for saves in a season. He passed some guy named Ethan Solomon; I heard he (Solomon) was overrated. That win completed our season sweep of Maryville and got us ready for Tuesday against Sewanee.

Yours truly took the hill and served up his first collegiate home run; however the team backed me up and put up 11 runs in my defense. In all that offense was a pinch-hit three-run homer from Sam Cunningham and solo shots from Josh Barrett and Andrew Pinckney. Kris Herring and Brye Adler finished up the game by pitching the eighth and ninth without allowing a hit.

That win improved our record to 32-2 as we head into the weekend with a three-game set against Piedmont. Come to Chappell Park on Saturday at noon to watch a doubleheader on a beautiful day. The team would like to wish all the fans and families a Happy Passover and a Happy Easter.

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