Well, it’s been a long while, and quite frankly, I haven’t found time to do much of anything lately! Between work and school, I am exhausted all the time. A lot has gone on since I last wrote, so let’s play catch up!
After my snow trip at New Year’s, DePaul started our winter quarter and practice and we had five weeks to prepare for season. Now, being in negative degrees and snow makes for a lot of indoor practices, which for me, wasn’t a common practice in college. We used our time wisely, though. We worked on a lot of hitting and our short game, and my pitchers threw in the cages to simulate game situations. Surprisingly, we got to see the dirt outside for a few days before our first tournament - it warmed up in Chicago, the snow melted, and we took full advantage.
I’m taking two more classes this quarter, which are challenging. I haven’t done as well as I would like in them so far, so in the next three weeks I am trying to make sure I get everything done and understand it so I can do better on my finals.
Before our season started, I spent some time in Austin at UT’s official opening weekend. It was nice to have a quick, refreshing trip down to my old home and see familiar faces and friends. The University of Texas officially presented me with a painting we had unveiled my junior year when I returned from Athens. Now that my eligibility is up, I was able to accept the painting that was done for me. It’s quite a piece, but I’m not sure where I am going to hang it yet. I will admit it was nice to wear Burnt Orange one more time.
Our first tournament was in Las Vegas, which sounds really fun, but when you spend all day at the field, you don’t really feel like having the Las Vegas experience at night. One day we finished early, walked the strip and had some fun! I finally rode the rollercoaster at New York New York, saw the Lions at MGM, and lastly, went to the Shark aquarium at the Bellagio. That’s about all the Las Vegas stuff I did while we were there, but that’s ok because I was there for work, which turned out to be a 4-1 weekend with an upset over the fifth-ranked Michigan Wolverines.
Our first tournament was in Las Vegas, which sounds really fun, but when you spend all day at the field, you don’t really feel like having the Las Vegas experience at night. One day we finished early, walked the strip and had some fun! I finally rode the rollercoaster at New York New York, saw the Lions at MGM, and lastly, went to the Shark aquarium at the Bellagio. That’s about all the Las Vegas stuff I did while we were there, but that’s ok because I was there for work, which turned out to be a 4-1 weekend with an upset over the fifth-ranked Michigan Wolverines.
Being a young coach always poses the challenge of trying to find new ways to approach problems or issues. I'm enjoying it though, and my pitchers made improvements. Our offense did well for most of the weekend, which is good to see. The more runs we put up, the better.
This past weekend we went down to Ft. Myers, Florida, and had a 5-1 weekend. Not too bad, but we know we could have played better at some points. Our team is constantly improving, and that’s what we like to see. There was no vacation time at all in Florida, so pictures are limited. Sam and I snapped a few of ourselves on the bus, but that’s about it.
We have three days at home before we head down to Georgia for a challenging weekend and we’re ready for it!
‘Til next time…
Cat
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