Hey Penguin Fans,

Below is a daily journal that our "great" Sports Information Director Jamie Hall asked me to write to chronicle our very first trip to California. I hope you enjoy it.

Go Guins!!

Becky Hibner

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

     We took off at an easy 5 a.m this morning with only one girl (as usual) cutting it close. The young ones may think coach is kidding when she says, “if you are late, we will leave you,” but in all actually; she will. She absolutely will. Luckily, with all in tow we pulled out of the stadium promptly and made it to Pittsburgh in 59 minutes. So much for the world ending snow storm we were supposed to have all night and morning. As soon as we arrived, we all checked in and were actually escorted to a different security area. Rumor has it, it’s the one for people who need to be rushed in order to be at their gates before boarding time. I didn’t think we were late, but apparently we weren’t early either. Only one girl (Jamie Fornal) decided to bring every liquid and/or gel parcel she owns with her through security. Needless to say, they weren’t having it and after either throwing it away or dumping it out, we were on our way to our gate. Side note: when everyone is in matching bright red swishy warm ups, people tend to stare; even at 6 a.m. As far as I know, our flight went well. I enjoyed about the first 45 seconds of the taxi before I decided I’d take a little catnap - for the entire three hours. I think 94percent of the plane joined me in this motion. Our layover in Houston went quickly. Between the shouted questions of, “what kind of team are you!?” and “where are ya’ll going?!”  we all managed to grab a quick bite to eat and hopped on our last flight of the day to San Jose. Many took catnaps, while others read, and few did homework.

    We waited in San Jose for our coaches to get the vans and stared outside at the foreign object in the sky. The sun was AMAZING. Our entire team and coaching staff made it into 2 vans and a mini van and without getting lost, made it to our hotel. Check in went smoothly, the COURTYARD Marriot was prepared and ready to go with us. Once we set curfew we were pretty much on our own to explore the block. All of us girls split up after unpacking and went for linner (that’s lunch/dinner). We are surrounded by an outrageous amount of eateries, so we all got to eat pretty much whatever our little hearts desired. Due to the time change, our night was cut short, with most of us passing out around 8 p.m., that’s 11 p.m. your time.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

    Early to bed, early to rise I guess. Most of us woke up around 7 a.m. (again, that time change thing) and ate the routine continental breakfast. Our first game was at 1 p.m. and we faced off against St. Mary’s at their field. Their facility was beautiful and it was awesome to be on dirt again. I’ve never seen coach more excited than she was when she was finally able to hit a fly ball that DIDN’T bounce off of a ceiling. Anyways, back to the game, Erin started and Danielle came in relief. The team had some awesome hitters and there pitcher was solid too. We played well, it took awhile for our bats to heat up, but that’s how it almost always goes. We played well as a team and even though we didn’t come away with a W; it was still a good way to start the season.

    Our next game was at 3 p.m. and we played St. Mary’s again. We played even better this time and were ahead most of the game, but again lost. Cheryl threw for us and threw an awesome game, we hit better, and our defense was pretty solid. A lot of times, good games are played without winning, and that’s what happened with us in the second game.

    Tonight we are all going to crash pretty quickly. It’s been awhile since A) we’ve played softball all day and B) we’ve spent more than one hour in the sun. It’s time to rehydrate and bond with the roomies. We need to get ready for two games tomorrow. Wish us luck and I'll be talking to you tomorrow!

February 29^th, 2008

    Again, we all woke up early. I’m thinking by about Monday morning (when we’ve going BACK to Ohio), we’ll have this time change thing down. Anyways, we had more late games today and to everyone who thinks that we are just basking in the sun on this fabulous vacation, you’re incorrect. Don’t get me wrong here, we love playing in the sun, but we wake up far too early for our liking and then we are on lockdown until games actually start, which today, wasn’t until later on.

    The first game we played was against Sacramento State. These teams we are playing are pretty tough. It’s fairly obvious that they have had a little bit more time than us to get those first game jitters out. Every game I feel like we are getting a little bit better and playing a little bit more as a team even though the scores may not be showing it. Honestly, if you were able to see us play you’d be able to see improvement - slowly, but surely my friends. Erin started against Sac State and then Danielle came in to try and shut them down. Today our bats actually started working and we may have even strung together some hits. Everything in moderation I always say. We lost this game as well, but like I said, it’s still early for us and we are taking this all as a learning experience.

    Later on we played Providence. Cheryl threw the entire game and was pretty tough. This team seemed to capitalize on every error we made and that hurt, but we did manage a run. What the score doesn’t show is that we are moving people around and getting people experience in spots that they may not have played before. It’s all a learning experience and it’s time now to figure out what works before we come back and play some conference games. This game we also lost, but during tough times, we learn a lot about each other and we’ll see how things go from here.

     We all went to dinner with our families again. It’s been pretty sweet for us west coast girls to spend some time with our families. Of course we have curfew so we aren’t spending late nights out (seriously!) but family time is always (almost) fun, quality time.

March 1, 2008

    This morning we played Campbell. The camels! It was the animals with amazing ability to live in the desert against the sweet, but fierce fighting arctic birds that can live on the South Pole! We had quite an adventure that took us down a road that was closed, back and forth down I-880, and gave us some mildly angry coaches before we actually made it to the fields today. On the bright side, coach found an inventive and creative way to get us there.  Danielle threw again for us and gave a valiant effort. These teams we’ve been playing have had pretty sweet bats and although today we seemed to hit better than the last few days, it wasn’t enough. You can guess from that statement that we lost again, but I can feel a win coming soon!

    Our second game was against Santa Clara. We had a serious amount of fans show up! It was kind of cool to have a lot people there! To our fans, don’t take that the wrong way, we really, really, appreciate your support, especially now, but I think we had probably close to 50 fans in attendance! Anyways, I threw (kind of) and Cheryl came in to help me out. Our bats really came alive this game and gave our fans and teammates a sneak peak into what is hopefully a bright future. We lost again but we definitely showed improvement and we are feeling alright heading in to tomorrow.

    We have a lot of time to burn this afternoon. I think many of us are tired (we haven’t played this many games in a row since we were 16 and playing summer ball) and we’re getting old. Ha ha, what I’m implying here is that right now a lot of us are taking naps (yes, taking the sun for granted because you at home are under inches of snow). In a few hours though after much needed showers and some rest, we will all be off to spend more time together and with the people we love. It should be a good night to relax and bond, although after 96 hours in a row together, there’s not a WHOLE lot of bonding left to do. Oh but believe me when I tell you that my team is creative, and we find ways.

March 2, 2008

    Today we only had one game. We played North Dakota State (I think) and as far as we knew, they were a really good team. They definitely had the record to prove it. We started off great. Danielle threw the whole game with Kristen behind the plate and everything seemed to be working well with the battery. They had some seriously fast girls that just seemed to run forever on us. Eventually, we were able to figure them out and start throwing some of those girls out. At about the same time, our bats came alive for a little bit and we strung some hits together. After we were down by 6 or 7 runs and in the very last inning, we decided to rally and score 3 more. You don’t have to be a math major to figure out that that wasn’t quite enough. We lost again, but not without a whole lot of heart. If you compared the last game we played this weekend to the first, you would see the vast amount of improvement we made in all aspects of the game. Still, we are nowhere near where we need to be, but like I said before, our season is just starting and if we were perfect from the get-go, it would be a little boring. We ended up losing 8-4 which isn’t exactly what we wanted, but definitely an improvement from where we were in the first games of the tourney.

    Post Sunday's game was when the true tourists in all of us came out. Whether it was with our parents or on some very safe form of public transportation (we used the buddy system, don’t worry) almost all of us made it to San Francisco. The variety of cultures and people there are just amazing. The amount of different shops and tourist attractions seemed overwhelming at first. We all soon settled down and walked around and picked out the few things we could do in one day. Some of us spent money in China Town, others ate on Pier 39 or fisherman’s wharf, while some of us went on short little cruises through the bay (few turned green, none actually vomited) or walked through the Pier 39 aquarium. The amount of things to do in San Fran were endless and I think we all managed to get our fill of San Francisco before we headed home to get tucked in before curfew. Although our softball record may not show it, I consider this trip a success. We a) came together as a team b) learned a lot about each other, on and off the field and c) I bought my boyfriend the cheapest and gaudiest San Fran trinket I could find; a colorful, plastic, Trolly Car magnet with “BOB” printed across the front. Mission. Accomplished. 

March 3, 2008

    Ah, what better way to spend a Monday morning than being shuffled around airports and watching coach’s feather’s get ruffled… But seriously, that’s what we did. I thought my blog would be done after last night as we all cashed in and then planned to have a smooth flight home. After getting to the airport with plenty of time to spare (crazy, I know) we were waiting to be checked in when we caught wind that the weather in Houston, where we planned to connect to Pittsburgh, wasn’t cooperating. Apparently flights there were delayed almost all afternoon so coach had some decisions to make. 1) Split us all up, wish us all luck with a pat on the bum, and send us to different airlines in hopes that we can all find each other eventually in Pittsburgh. Coach swiftly discarded this idea. 2) Keep us in the 100 square foot San Jose airport until 930 PM where we could finally fly into Pittsburgh around 7 AM. Who needs to sleep horizontally before heading to class at 8AM anyways? Coach may have thought about this one, but found a better option. 3) Shuffle us into vaxis (that’s what I call a van, doubling as a taxi) to scoop us up and swiftly get us to the San Francisco airport where we could run around trying to catch a 1 PM flight that would eventually land us in Pittsburgh around 130 AM. Coach gambled and won! We are now in the air to Philadelphia. We thought we would be rushed for time, but thank goodness the vaxi’s broke the sound barrier and got us to San Fran in a record 35 minutes. Hopefully, the rest of the flight goes well and we don’t run in to any more dilemma’s in Philly. I’m sure all of you faithful Y town softball blog readers will see our smiling faces at our 8 AM classes tomorrow morning after arriving at the bottom of the stadium at 2 AM. If anyone would like to volunteer to vaxi us all home after this crazy trip you can contact me at… kidding. Thanks so much for reading. The softball program really does appreciate everyone who follows us and we hope to give you guys something to cheer about real soon!
 

Anyway, thanks for checking into my blog and make sure to follow us all season long.

Thanks again Penguin fans!!

Becky Hibner

Please check back to read Senior Becky Hibner's daily diary of the Youngstown State softball program's first trip to the state of California.