I did this last season. (And annoyingly, I can’t find
it on my hard drive.) This time I
scanned through my various posts for highlights. But first, a couple of awards.
My softball player of the year is Kelsey Horton. Duh. She only hit .415 with 16 home runs and 59
RBI’s. By the end of the season,
opposing conference teams stopped pitching to her altogether. She also seems like a nice girl, which
matters more than numbers in real life.
You know, with the Aggie baseball team losing so many seniors after this
season, and Kelsey hardly being challenged in conference softball games, I
wonder if . . . Just a thought.
For baseball, I’ll pick two players. In pitching, Ruger Rodriguez had a .92 ERA with 9 saves this season in 20
appearances. I think he only had two bad
outings this year that I can remember. I
liked seeing him come into games. That
usually meant we were about to win.
Having a cool name doesn’t hurt either.
The Aggie starting nine finished the regular season hitting
over .300, were ranked eighth nationally in average, and lead the WAC in every
offensive category. So picking an
offensive star is a bit difficult for having so many choices. With no desire to offend anyone, I
nonetheless choose Brent Sakurai for
my baseball offensive player of the year.
He led the team in batting average at .367 and in hits, and led the
country with 9 triples, setting a school record also.
You could pick some other players based on numbers, so let
me throw these two things out that tipped the scale for me. I think I met Brent outside the stadium
before the 2016 season started.
He could barely walk, but was confident he’d be ready to play second base
the next week. He was. This year, I think I figured out what got
into Brent in the last game of the regular season, going 5 for 5. Mason Fishback had gotten ahead of him in batting average the game
before. Nobody’s come up with a “Grit”
stat yet, but Brent seems to have it. (Adam Young also described him as
“Gritty” when summing up his season.)
Here’s a list my season highlights. This list is basically limited to games that
I actually saw in person or heard on the radio (and TV).
The Aggies beat the
heck out of Bryant and Mount St. Mary’s to start their
season. They even led the country in
runs after these games.
It was a double header versus Yale. The Aggies reeled off
another double digit win in Game 1. What
I was really struck by was how many Yale fans came for the games and how nice
they were.
Two words: Basia
Query, who became my favorite opposing team softball player.
This was the game versus Texas Tech in Las Cruces. Tech
traveled well with lots of fans.
Unfortunately, they were kind of crappy to sit with. It was also good to see Aggie fans show up to
a weekday, day game, especially one where the time had been changed. My highlight for Aggie player spotting was
seeing women’s basketball star, Brooke
Salas, at the game. I’ve seen
several Aggie athletes supporting other sports, but outside of seeing Aggie
Quarterback Tyler Rogers at a
soccer match, this was the most unexpected.
Marcel Renteria’s
finest outing. He went nine innings
against Sacramento State. With the bases
loaded in the ninth, he talked his way into finishing off the inning.
Kelsey Horton broke
up a no-hitter in the last inning with a home run against Arizona.
Alexis Maynez
busted out hitting. There’s a little
hometown pride here seeing the local girl suddenly mashing the ball.
Chatting with Brandee
Walton from the women’s basketball team was the personal season highlight
for me.
This was the “Longest Day” for me, as I went to the Aggie
yard sale, a baseball game, and a softball double hitter in inclement weather. Kaitlyn
Rubio’s classic walk up music made me think that both teams should have a
Retro Walk up Music Day, where the players have to pick music from before they
were born. In Game 2, Victoria Castro hit the two longest home
runs I’ve seen at the softball park.
Aggie Men’s Basketball stars, Ian Baker and Matt Taylor,
threw out the first pitches. They
definitely picked the right sport to specialize in. If I was playing street baseball with
neighborhood kids, I would pick these guys last.
Andy Frakes, out
of the bullpen, went eight and a third versus the Lobos with a strong wind
blowing out. This was probably the
team’s best win of the year.
Kayla Green had a
sometimes rough year pitching, but her best performance was getting a
save. She protected a one-run lead, with
two on, and got all three outs against Florida-Atlantic.
This was probably the Softball team’s
best win of the regular season.
Game 8 of the WAC Softball Tournament. Without a doubt, the game of the year. Fans will be remembering this game for a long
time.
I got to see the softball girls on national TV at the NCAA
tournament. It was a bit of a thrill.
Coach Green’s post-game
speech made everyone feel good. It was
really nice to be invited on to the field as a fan and a good way to end the
year.
No comments:
Post a Comment