Feb. 28, 2007

Well, if there's anything that can cure a rough weekend on the road, it's walking out of Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge victorious. Man that was fun! Last night was my 12th game versus LSU as a Tulane student-athlete. The atmosphere and intensity surrounding the game is tough to describe, and is exciting to be a part of. The Tulane/LSU rivalry is truly one of the great spectacles in college baseball today. It felt great walking out of The Box last night (presumably, for the last time in my career) having defeated one of the great programs in college baseball history.

Last weekend paired us up with another one of the most respected college baseball programs in The University of Southern California. Unfortunately, that series didn't turn out as well as we had hoped. Friday night was a frustrating loss as we left 14 runners on base in a game where we had many opportunities to score but just could not capitalize. After losing a one-run ball game on Saturday, I was encouraged by the way we came out and scrapped on Sunday to avoid the sweep in a must-win game for us.

Unfortunately there were no celebrity sightings in L.A., even with it being Oscar Weekend and all. On Saturday night, the Martins (Trey's family) were kind enough to open their home to the team and the players' families who made the trip. They have a lovely home in Pacific Palisades and it was very nice to have a place to relax, eat, play some pool, and to get to mingle and talk with the families of the program.

Our flight out of L.A. didn't leave until nearly 11:00 Sunday night, so after the final game of the series our bus took us to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The Promenade is like an outdoor mall on the street with block after block of clothing stores, movie theatres, restaurants and other types of shops. It was a good place to kill a few hours before we had to head to the airport.

It's never fun taking the redeye flight. I felt especially bad for the guys on the team who were sick, including our trainer Anne. Our team caught a pretty nasty bug while we were on the road. That's always a risk you run when you're traveling in airports and in airplanes. Luckily most of the guys are starting to feel better now (although there are 10 or so guys who are still under the weather). Hopefully the worst is over now - knock on wood.

So anyway, we did finally arrive back in New Orleans at around 8:00 am. By the time we actually made it back to our houses it was close to 10:00. I personally don't sleep very well on planes, so I was working on about an hour of sleep over a 24-hour span. I know most of us went home and did our best to catch up on sleep that afternoon, but unfortunately I had two papers due at 6:30 that night that I still had to get up and finish! Don't worry though, I got it all taken care of and was able to get a good night's sleep Monday night.

Well now that we are all caught back up on our sleep (and hopefully over the bug we caught last weekend), we can look forward to another tough opponent in Wright State University this weekend. WSU took out two out of three from Ole Miss last weekend in Oxford, so it sounds like they are playing some good baseball. I'm hoping we can use the wins Sunday and Tuesday to gain some momentum and to help us hit our stride on the field. Wins like those help to bring confidence to the program, and we need to carry that confidence into this weekend and build upon it.

Thanks to everyone who made the trips out to Los Angeles and Baton Rouge. I really think we had more fans than USC did at their own field - which is very cool - and had a great turnout in Baton Rouge as well, as always!

I look forward to seeing everyone out there again this weekend! Come cheer us on as we continue to hit our stride and keep this winning streak alive! See ya next time!

Roll Wave!
Matt