Wednesday, February 14, 2018

NM State Aggies vs Kentucky Wildcats Softball 2-11-18



Okay, I can’t avoid this topic any longer.  It’s time to talk about the “hair” situation.  Amy Bergeson (and you can check out a better current picture of her here and read about Saturday’s games) went from long raven locks (as shown below, Amy’s on the left) to a shorter blonde cut with some dark highlights.  This is a really fun, sporty look for Amy.  Looking at some older pictures, I think this is her natural hair color. 

Kelsey Horton, meanwhile has gone brunette.  Part of me thinks this was done in an effort to try and fool conference pitchers into thinking she’s someone else, so that they’ll pitch to her.  I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to work.  She’s still lovely, but Kelsey should be blonde.  It’s not that I have a blonde preference (I think, I definitely used to prefer brunettes), but I always mentally picture Kelsey with her heroic stature as a Valkyrie, one Odin’s warrior handmaidens of victorious, valiant death (or maybe not that dramatic).  She storms on to the field for battle wielding a BBCorr bat and wearing a mitt.  All Kelsey needs is a winged horse and large feathers on the side of her helmet to complete the look.  (You can feel free to take this as a suggestion for this years’ Halloween costume.  Post it on the team Twitter.)

Last night’s What-a-burger did not sit well with me and I got no sleep.  I don’t think it was the burger, but rather how late I’d eaten it.  (The PQ Treats frozen tornado that I chased it with probably didn’t help.)  I ended up having a glass of milk for breakfast and didn’t actually eat until after this game in the late afternoon, when I’d finally got my appetite back.  This seemed like an ill omen. 

The last of last night’s basketball crowd was finally able to pull out of the parking lot as I came back to the university for today’s softball game versus the Kentucky Wildcats.  (That might not be much of an exaggeration, exiting after a big event is an issue.)  There had been a cold breeze blowing before I left, but it had died down by the time I’d pulled in.  I ditched my coat in my truck as it was bright, sunny and warm.  I was even overdressed a bit in my Aggie hoodie.  Well, at least it’s a great day for a game, I thought. 

There was another good crowd in the stands.  University President Garrey Carruthers was there.  He’s a fan of the team.  I sat next to Danny again.  (Ron had family things to attend to today.)  Adam Young was providing play-by-play for today’s game on the radio, which was very welcome.  Unfortunately, this was only scheduled radio broadcast for the regular season.  The baseball team was scrimmaging next door. 

The girls were in their “Sandman” black and grey’s, though their batting helmets were white today.  I noticed volleyball player, Lia Mosher, wasn’t with the team today.  (She’s pretty easy to pick out of a crowd.)  I find myself really hoping I get to see her play this season.  Staff ace, Kayla Green was reported to be sick, but was still in uniform.  She came through the stands briefly during the game to collect retrieved balls at the pressbox and she was coughing.  As it was, Kayla probably wanted to be there no matter how she was feeling.  I’m guessing Coach Kathy Rodolph would have started her today and only kept her around on the off chance that if the game was close late, she might be good for an inning. 

Samaria Diaz started for the Aggies.  She was a bit shaky in the first, giving up three hits, a run, and hitting a batter.  Her catcher, Shelby Shultes, limited the damage by throwing out Erin Rethlake, the Wildcats’ starting pitcher and hitting for herself, at second base.  1-0 Kentucky.  Fahren Glackin collected a hit in the bottom, but Aggies otherwise went down quickly. 

In the second, trucker hats in colors matching the Aggies’ uniforms were tossed to the crowd.  I didn’t make an effort to get one.  I’ve already got three Aggie hats.  Sam gave up a couple of hits in the inning, and Rachel Rodriguez had her fourth error in three games trying to feed Kelsey for a force at second.  No damage done, though.  Afore mentioned blonde, Amy Bergeson singled in between a strikeout and a fly out.  Destiny Blueford, not the likeliest power hitter in the lineup, hit a line drive homer to right field, an opposite field two-run shot.  2-1 Aggies. 

In the third, afore mentioned brunette, Kelsey Horton committed her second error of the series.  I watched a preseason interview with Coach Kathy yesterday (Tuesday) and the first thing she mentioned that she was confident in was the team’s improved defense this season.  She must be fuming after this weekend.  Destiny, at least, sparkled again, as she threw out a runner at first on a ball hit to right field.  Unfortunately, Abbey Cheek came up and hit a two-run homer right after, 3-2 Wildcats. 

I should mention that the wind had picked back up and was blowing out.  Not only that, clouds had rolled in and suddenly it was cold and miserable.  An inning before, I was nearly sweating, now I was almost shivering.  I kept thinking the sun would come back out, the wind would die down, and I wouldn’t need to run out and get my jacket.  Rachel led off the third with a double.  Fahren received her third bruise of the series courtesy of Wildcat pitching.  Last time she was angry.  This time, the umpire had to escort her to first base to stop her from charging the circle.  She was replaced by a pinch runner, Brandy Hernandez.  A couple of groundouts and pop up ended the inning.

Sam got a couple of quick fly outs in the fourth, but was suddenly pulled in the middle of an at bat for Analise de la Roca.  She made one pitch to end the inning on a ground out to first.  Amy collected another hit in the Aggie half of the fifth, but was caught stealing right after.  She had an awkward jump going for the base and wasn’t going to make it.  That ended the rally. 

For the fifth, freshman, Kennedi Sorensen came in to catch, which I think was her debut.  I noticed her having a friendly exchange with the ump during the inning.  With two other hard-hitting catchers on the staff, she was probably happy to get into a game.  After a single, Jenny Schaper (“shaper,” still loving that name) hit a deep fly ball to straight away center.  Victoria Castro may have caught it going just over the fence, but couldn’t hold on.  In and out heartbreak.  It was a wind-aided, cheap homer, but it still counted.  5-2 Wildcats. 

The sixth inning featured “Dance Cam,” but without the camera, nobody wanted to dance.  It was cold and windy and we were losing.  “We just got up,” said one lady, referring to the fifth-inning stretch.  “That was just to warm you up for dancing,” replied Danny.  Analise had no problems in this inning.  In the bottom, Kelsey and Nikki shared a laugh on deck.  At least the girls stayed loose.  Kelsey got a single, but that was all of the Aggie damage.  The newspaper account mentioned that the Wildcats changed their pitching strategy for this game and went with a lot of offspeed stuff.  This was the inning I noticed that Rethlake was really getting in some good pitches.

And the wind the wind blew out another two-run homer in the seventh for Kentucky.  This one was by Katie Reed.  The crowd started deserting at this point.  It may have been more for the cold than the score.  There was scheduled autograph session after the game; I was definitely staying.  Then Cheek hit her second home run of the game.  This one was a three-run shot and would have gone out with the wind blowing straight in.  The outfielders didn’t even flinch or bother watching it.  10-2 Kentucky. 

Okay, I was definitely still staying, but I was also definitely running out to my truck to get my coat.  Besides, it finally occurred to me that was listening to the game call and wasn’t going to miss anything.  On my way out though, I ran into Volleyball Coach Mike Jordan.  Well, this was opportune, since I had burning volleyball question.  “Hi, coach.  Hey, did you know that Lia was out here yesterday in uniform with the softball team?”  I fully expected him to be infuriated that one of his players was cheating on him with another coach.  Actually, he knew about it.  Coach Jordan referred to it as “an experiment.”  He seemed skeptical, but was taking Coach Kathy’s assessment that she had some talent. 

Some of the volleyball team came in with him.  They must have come straight from practice, as they were in loose t-shirts and shorts.  This sight only made me feel colder.  I don’t think they felt real warm either.  After a hit batter, freshman Mikayla Bongi was finally brought in to the get the last two outs.  I don’t know why Analise was left out to twist in the breeze, so to speak, for so long.  She’s got some good stuff, but I wouldn’t want to wreck her confidence by letting her get shelled this early in the season.  In any case, the Aggies went down in order to end the game.  Our final: Wildcats 10, Aggies 2.                      

Erin Rethlake of the Wildcats gets the game ball for her complete game pitching performance, as well as hitting for herself.  This was a pretty amazing turnaround from her Saturday start.  Destiny Blueford is our easy, if only, Aggie Player of the Game with her two-run homer and a great putout.  Team fielding was again a bit shaky, as was the pitching.  I mean no disrespect to the Kentucky coaching staff, but after seeing their team dominate in this game, I don’t think they actually scouted the Aggies until after they’d gotten beat the day before.  I may be wrong, but that’s sure what it looked like.  One thing is for sure, when defending national champion Oklahoma comes here this week for the Troy Cox Classic, the Aggies aren’t going to be sneaking up on them, not after this weekend.          

After the game, I went around back for autographs.  The volleyball team was there, which was a nice show of support.  Gia Pack from the Women’s Basketball team was also there.  I would have liked to have said “Hi” to her, but she looked kind of grim.  I hope the whole team isn’t brooding after their bad road trip.  Once again, I ended up next to Coach Jordan.  Having the coach’s ear for a second time, I praised Megan Hart’s performance last year.  He said she’d recovered from her injuries to where she felt confident in hitting. 

With all the confidence I could muster, I then told him that the only thing holding the team back the last two years has been injuries.  At this point, I was probably about to go into some polite form of my rant that I didn’t want to hear about anymore injuries in practice, since that’s on the coaches, not the players.  I was going to use my example that Coach Mark Trakh felt his success with the Women’s Basketball team last year hinged on keeping his players healthy and making sure they didn’t hurt themselves in practice. 

What actually happened was that Coach Jordan agreed that that was an issue and that they needed to focus on it.  Okay, he’s aware of the problem.  I remarked about how badly the girls in volleyball get injured compared to other sports.  The coach winsomely expressed his admiration for his lost team captain, Jordan Abalos.  She had apparently came into the program with an injury from high school that had never really healed.  Wow, as if I didn’t already think enough of her determination.  She was already aware that her knees were wrecked for life from playing, but kept doing it. 

At this point, his wife and little son came back.  The boy had a mitt with a bunch of signatures on it.  The coach gave me a fist-bump in parting.  He had a massive championship ring sitting on one of his fingers.  I hope the conversation wasn’t too awkward for the coach.  Random conversations with idiot strangers about the team probably happen to him on a regular basis.  I was certainly glad to chat with him for a minute.  He was a nice guy, as long as you’re not playing volleyball for him.       

I’ll admit.  The autographs were a bit of a letdown.  I’d hoped to chat for a couple of seconds with a several players, but it didn’t really materialize.  In fairness, they’d just lost badly, it was cold and windy, and, after the talking to the coach, I was the last person in line.  The girls mostly had their heads down signing and were leaving right after signing my poster.  The signing tables were even being taken down behind me. 

Still, there was some interaction.  Nikki Butler has a great smile and was very friendly.  Unfortunately, I totally blanked on her name, which was terrible because I did know it and recognized her.  I got to congratulate Destiny Blueford on her home run.  She was all smiles and nice.  Granted she was the only one who’d had a good game, but I’d guess that’s her usual personality.  Down the line, I ended up standing next to Rachel Rodriguez.  She’d had a rough weekend, but Rachel was all smiles and totally genuinely pleasant.  You could tell she was a nice girl in two seconds, like Brandi Walton on the basketball team last year.  Rachel even checked to make sure that Kelsey had signed the poster before she gave it back to me.  What a sweetheart. 

There I was, so close to Kelsey Horton, but she was already leaving by the time I got to her.  I wasn’t able to get her attention before she left.  Darn it, I had a couple of questions for her.  Not that I know anybody on the team well, but I at least know a bit about her.  Well, so much for talking to her this season.  Fahern Glackin was the last player on the line.  I told her that the other team didn’t seem to like her.  Yeah, she was aware of that and she was still angry.  I wished I’d said something different.  Fahren was probably aching. 
 
I need to add a postscript.  Monday evening, I listened to KROD’s Sportstalk out of El Paso.  Likely much to the consternation of Miner fans, much of the show was about the Aggies.  Host Steve Kaplowitz spent his opening segment talking about the Pan-Am sellout and the Men’s basketball win.  He had Coach Chris Jans on to talk about it, as well as Coach Brian Green to promote Aggie Baseball.  However, nobody mentioned the Softball team’s big wins.  Aggie Athletic Director Mario Moccia did Tweet out over the weekend that he was sorry that the softball victory would likely get overshadowed by the basketball victory. 

I took it on myself to hype the team.  I wasn’t able to call them from work and there wasn’t a working e-mail to reach them, but there is a spot on their website for breaking stories and tips.  Apparently they keep close track of submissions there.  Kappy read my copy verbatim ten minutes later (after presumably fact-checking it).  The funny thing was that I had a co-worker at my desk and I was showing her my softball poster with the station stream on.  Kappy said my name to start the story and she said, “Hey, that guy on the radio just mentioned somebody with your name.”

I admit that was a bit of thrill hearing my little recap was being read over the air with my name attached to it.  I was even more happy to help recognize the team’s accomplishment to a wider audience.  If anyone with the team was listening earlier, hopefully this made up for it.  I think Sportstalk just didn’t know that the Aggies had beaten an SEC team, because they would have mentioned it.  Coach Kathy is a “friend of the show,” and I think I’ve heard her interviewed there.  (I hope they take the opportunity to invite her on this week to talk about it.)  Kappy even segued into talking about UTEP Softball right after. 

Coach Jans did wish the baseball and softball teams good luck in his interview, but I think he didn’t know about it either.  I’ve heard him offer support to other Aggie sports before.  Coach Green, on the other hand, must have known.  His boys were there and had to have come back inspired and motivated to go beat a big school themselves this season.  Come on, Coach, Aggie Up.      


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