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| Kristin Stith's Postseason Blog |
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Friday, May 16
Today we earned our first NCAA tournament win! We faced Purdue and we came out and attacked early. Britton hit a 3-run blast over the left field fence (inches from the foul pole)in the 1st inning which put us in the driver's seat the rest of the game. Congrats to Katie for throwing a great game, and to the Pack for taking care of business.
Southern California was HOT today but it has been so nice. Yesterday after our practice we all went miniature golfing and had a blast. We broke up into classes and mase it into a lil' competition...who do you think won? SENIORS!!! And we didn't cheat! Then we had team dinner at Island's, it was a fun day.
Tomorrow we face UCLA. This is what we came here for, and we are very prepared. It is SO GREAT to see so many fans at our game, we missed all of our friends and family when we were in Hawaii...it's great to have such a big cheering section. And thank you for everyone who has been following us on ESPN U! Stay tuned and until then...GO PACK!!
Kristin Stith #55
Wednesday, May 14
Greetings Pack fans!! It is Wednesday afternoon and I am sitting in Reno/Tahoe International airport getting ready to fly to Los Angeles. The selection show was intense as we all sat on the edge of our seats wondering who we were going to face. Thank you to Bully’s for having us.
We had practice this morning, and we are ready to go. Many girls from the team are from Southern California. Kym, Vanessa, Me, my sister Katie, Jordie, Chach (Richelle), Danielle, and Noelle are all from down there and we are looking forward to having our families there. We are expecting a pretty good fan base as almost everyone’s parents and families are planning on making the trip. I am really looking forward to facing UCLA. But first and foremost we need to beat Purdue. I actually was on the team when we faced Purdue 5 years ago, and we beat them. We need to have a rock solid weekend mentally and physically, and we looked great at practice this week. I do truly feel honored to be selected to compete in UCLA’s region, they are one of the most respected and successful programs in the nation and you can almost always bet on them competing in the NCAA College World Series. It really is a privilege to compete at this level.
Last weekend was a rough one. Congratulations to La Tech for a great tournament-they were hot and played well. It wasn’t long ago (2 years) that the Pack went into the WAC tourney as the 4 seed and came out with a championship! So congrats to the Techsters. I think that we were definitely ready to leave the island once the tournament was over, it was a long week. Thank you to all of you who followed us during the tournament, we appreciate the support! But that weekend is in the past, and we are now ready to get back on the road. This week finals ended! Yessssss, so that means no more study hall hours and all we have to worry about is playing ball.
I am looking forward to this weekend, so is everyone else. We feel positive about where we are going and just want to start playing. Tomorrow we are planning on having a light practice at UCLA, and the show begins on Friday. We plan on being in action until June, but I think that it’s starting to hit the seniors that our softball careers are beginning to really wind down. We had senior day a couple weeks ago, shed a couple tears, but we knew we still had a ways to go...So I think the team is starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel and it is starting to get a little emotional. We have every intention, however, of making it to Oklahoma. We set some goals this fall and our ultimate goal was to get to the World Series, and unlike the past 4 years I have been here, I have this feeling of confidence that this team can go all the way. We have achieved things this year that no one thought we could do. We have made more comebacks than any other team I have ever seen, and broke into not only the top 25, but the top 20. We won our conference, we beat Arizona in February when they were #1, we broke records, we really have started something special. This year has been a blast and I can’t wait to see what we are going to achieve this week. The sky is the limit. I will continue blogging this week for everyone, don’t worry =) Let’s go get em’ ladies! Stay tuned Pack fans and until then...GO PACK!!!
Kristin Stith #55
Late Friday, May 9
Today was a long day...Nevada likes to make it interesting =) We dropped our first game to La. Tech hats off to them for playing a good game. As a team we have faced so many challenges this season, so what’s another one? We are now in the losers’ bracket, and we came back tonight beat Hawaii in the bottom of the 7th for a phenomenal win. There were so many Hawaii fans at the game but we were thankful to have our small crowd of fans in blue we love you guys!
Katie threw a great ball game, and this was an absolute team effort. I am so proud of our team we played as a team and every single one of us contributed to this win. Congratulations Pack, way to step up when it was on the line.
Now it’s just us and La. Tech. The Lady Techsters are undefeated so we need to beat them twice to win the tournament. We are so ready to take on the challenge and there is no doubt in our minds that this tournament belongs to us. I plan on having a longer blog for everyone tomorrow with lots of good news!! It’s late here in Hawaii and I need to go to bed for the big day tomorrow. Thanks for all the support, we really appreciate it. Stay tuned...until then GO PACK!!!
Kristin Stith #55
Friday, May 9
Good morning Pack fans!!! We are getting ready to go to breakfast right now. Today we are eating at Smorgy's which is an outside Hawaiian buffet that is about a half-mile from our hotel. Feelings this morning are confident and anxious.
It was suggested that I talk a little bit about some of our pre-game rituals; so I'll give you a small breakdown of how we do it =)
This trip, we don't have a bus, we have 5 different vans to transport all of us around. So all of us have been riding in the same van all year around...call it superstition I guess. We get into our vans, and Sister (which is my little sister Katie Stith) made pre-game CDs for all of the vans to listen to on the way to the fields. Favorite pre-game song for this trip in my van (which consists of Brit Puzey, Ty Schafer, K-Starr, me, and Coach Andy) is Madonna and Justin Timberlake's “4 minutes.” So we rock out for a little bit, then once we get to the fields we usually have about 15 minutes to kill. This is when we play hacky sack. I'm horrible at this, so I usually watch...but we are getting pretty good. Then we start our pre-game warm-up and any minute of free time that we get in this process until the game starts, we are usually found playing hacky sack.
So that's what we do before all of our games and that's how it's been pretty much all season. One thing that we are also very proud of is our cheers. Any of you who have been to a Nevada softball game know exactly what I'm talking about! We are loud and obnoxious, but also very well choreographed =) We take pride in our cheering. We do actually think about cheers before we play, and can't wait to wake up La Tech this afternoon with our enthusiasm! So that's a little inside of Nevada softball! GO PACK!!!!
Kristin Stith #55
Thursday, May 8
One down, Two more to go!!! Today was a good day, it started early with team breakfast at 7:15 a.m., as we all eat in one of the girls’ rooms (our rooms have kitchens). Then we left for the ball field FINALLY to face the first victim, San Jose State! We played well today; we came out and attacked early in the game. We were so anxious to finally get on the field and do what we came here to do. Jordie threw a great game, and with some big hits and good defense there was no doubt as to who should win this game. There were a few minor rain delays, but other than that the weather was gorgeous this morning. We have the rest of the day off to relax, maybe walk down to the water for a little bit. Annie (who is one of our assistants) and her Dad are cooking us lasagna tonight and we can’t wait! So a fun team dinner outside by the pool tonight as we get ready for our second win. We are facing La. Tech tomorrow for the final of the winner’s bracket... bring it on. Stay tuned and until then...GO PACK!!!!!
Kristin Stith #55
Tuesday, May 6
Aloha from beautiful Hawaii!! My name is Kristin Stith, and for those of you who don’t know I am a first/second baseman from Southern California and I’m concluding my fifth and final year with the Pack this season. I just got back from the WAC banquet tonight, and it was a good time. The Pack glowed tonight as we swept so many awards (not to mention how good we looked)!! Congratulations to those of you who received All-WAC honors tonight, especially to Vanessa Briones and Coach Gardner for earning WAC Player and Coach of the Year -- we are so proud of you guys. Our “Regular Season WAC Champions” trophy is so heavy...but it feels oh so good to carry it =)
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That's me and Kelsey Starr posing
with the hardware. |
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Feelings going into the WAC tourney are calm, cool, and collected. I have never felt so prepared going into a tournament before. The team’s aura is great, we are so excited to get on the field and continue the winning streak! The weather here is nothing like northern Nevada, I suddenly remember what humidity is. So far, not too hot...knock on wood, but there’s always a nice breeze blowing. Looking out from my hotel balcony I can see the ocean, and it really makes me appreciate the fact that I get to travel to places like this to play ball. Coach Gardner is pretty cool about letting us have our “free time.” We get an hour to go to the beach everyday, and we can shop and walk around whenever we aren’t on the ball field or in STUDY HALL (blah). Today I walked around and visited some of the shops after I hung out on the beach for a while and watched a couple from Germany take surf lessons for the first time it was hysterical. So we do get to enjoy a bit of our scenery while on the island. Favorite place to eat here Cheeseburger in Paradise. YUM!
Tomorrow the madness begins! But, being the #1 seed in the tournament we don’t start till Thursday. So tomorrow we are planning on visiting North Shore after we practice and watch a couple of ball games. Thank you to everyone who is rooting for us and has been following us, we love and appreciate all of the support so much. Stay tuned...until then GO PACK!!!!!
Kristin Stith #55
