Friday, May 16, 2008

TUSCULUM BASEBALL NOTEBOOK: DUSTIN MORROW PLAYER BLOG NO. 3

TAMPA --- The following is Thursday’s daily blog by senior first baseman Dustin Morrow’s during Tusculum College’s run in the NCAA Division II South Region Baseball Tournament in Tampa, Fla. Morrow, a senior from Lexington, Ky., is making his third NCAA Tournament trip.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

8:30 a.m. – I arose early again to get the continental breakfast from the hotel restaurant. Game day is not the time to start skipping meals, especially in Florida. Doing any physical exercise in this heat zaps your energy so you have to stay fueled.

9:30 a.m. – After spending some time on the computer responding to e-mails and checking Facebook it was off to the room to relax. We watched some TV and just sat around knowing that once we left for batting practice we would be subjected to the heat for an extended period of time.

11:15 a.m. – Time for treatment. Today instead of just dangling my legs in the hot tub I just got all the way in. I’m not going to lie, I was sore after practicing for the first time in over a month. Some of the muscles that I had neglected for all that time reminded me of their presence by aching when I woke up. After 15 minutes in the tub it was off to (Athletic Trainer Chris) Lenker’s room for ultrasound and a massage on the old calf muscle.

12:15 p.m. – Time to get focused. After a delicious chicken parmesan sandwich the position players loaded up and headed to the New York Yankees spring training facility to take batting practice.

12:45 p.m. – We arrived for BP and there was an extended spring training game going on between the Yankees and Blue Jays on one of the other fields. Some of the guys stopped to watch and had to be pushed along by the coaches because we had business of our own to tend to. After a solid round of BP we loaded up the vans and headed to the University of Tampa to meet up with the pitchers.

2:00 p.m. – Pre-Game. It was business as usual for us as we stretched, played catch and took infield/outfield. Spirits were high as we prepared to face Carson-Newman, again.

3:00 p.m. – Game time! After days and weeks of preparation the time had finally arrived. The game was touted as a pitchers duel as it featured two of the regions best pitchers in C-N’s Brett Hontz and my little brother Boo. Both pitchers had rough outings, both only lasting into the 5^th inning. It was a back and forth game as they jumped ahead early but we overcame several mistakes to pull out the win on a walk-off single by fellow 5^th year senior and TC grad Matt Webb.

6:30 p.m. – After spending time talking with the fans we loaded up the vans and headed back over to the hotel to shower up for dinner.

7:00 p.m. – I opted not to go with the team but instead to go with my family to eat dinner. We found this nice little seafood restaurant called Shell’s were we dined on fish and shrimp. I spent the majority of the meal razing my brother about the game and how the team bailed him out again.

8:00 p.m. – After dinner we went back to the hotel for a while and relaxed. M7 parents talked to some of the New Englanders while I swam around in the pool. My mom decided that we needed to go get ice cream so we loaded up my parents’ rental mini-van and headed down to the Cold Stone Creamery. The guy working there was a showboat and was throwing the ice cream up in the air and catching it in the bowls and cones. When he tossed my brother’s girlfriend’s scoop the cone flying out of the holder it was in and the ice cream splattered down on the counter. Again he tried and this time he broke the cone. Finally on the third time he got it and we were on our way.

11:00 p.m. – Curfew. My roommates and I sat around in the room watching some high quality television programs on HBO and VH1 before calling it a night. We get to sleep in tomorrow as we don’t play until 7:00 Friday night, against Catawba.

- TC -