9-17-19
The Triple-A
Championship game was broadcast on KROD
tonight. Given that the Chihuahuas weren’t involved, it wasn’t
that interesting for most of the El
Paso/Las Cruces-area audience.
However, on the IL’s Columbus
Clippers was recent Aggie star, Daniel Johnson. It was pretty cool getting to hear him play. Hopefully, he’ll be in the big leagues next
year.
9-24-19
I got to watch a great baseball game tonight: Nationals versus Phillies. Most of the time I
have a game on, I don’t get to watch most of it. Today, for whatever reason, I was able to
watch most of this game. It had some
importance as the Nat’s magic number was 2 to clinch a Wild Card spot. As they were playing, their competition to
get in, the Cubs, were playing the Pirates.
The Nationals trailed for most of the game. Trea
Turner put them up dramatically with a grand slam. Later in the game, Bryce Harper came up getting boo’d by Washington crowd. He was facing Hunter Strickland, who’d famously plunked him last year when he was
pitching for the Giants. What a change. Last the time, it’d been the Washington crowd
booing Strickland for hitting Harper. All they did was change shirts! Jerry
Seinfeld might say. Bryce hit a home
run this time to get the score within one and some revenge.
However, the Nationals did prevail. As the Nats went out on field to congratulate
each other, the video screen in the outfield immediately cut to the Cubs versus
Pirates. The team stayed on the field to
watch, as it was in the ninth there with two outs. With the Pirate victory, the Nationals celebrated
getting the Wild Card berth. This game
had a bit of everything. That was
fun. This ended up being the last
regular season baseball game I really watched this season.
Aggie Lia Mosher
My goodness she's attractive
9-26-19
I went to work a bit early and immediately brought up Aggie Soccer’s match in South Dakota on the WAC Digital Network. They were already down 5-1 halfway through
the second half. They’d lose 5-2.
Keeper Dmitri Fong played the
first half and gave up 3 goals. Mia Montano played the second and gave
up 2. Both had 5 saves each. I hope Dmitri isn’t hurt again and the coach
just took her out because she was having a bad game. Hannah
Leitner and Alexa Barrera each
had goals. That was Hannah’s first
college goal.
A little while later, Aggie
Volleyball took on Utah Valley
on the road, also on the digital network.
The Wolverines were 3-9, but they
were the WAC Championship runner-ups
last year. From the UV pregame, I
learned they’re down a critical player.
After the player introductions, the Wolverines tossed t-shirts into the
crowd. For the Aggies, Analyssa Acosta was still in at
libero. The UV announcers liked her and
highlighted her play in the match. They
were impressed with her.
Set 1 was close to start.
The Wolverines had Megan Hart
blocked at the net, triple-teaming her at times. She did have a highlight of hitting one
through three blockers. UV took a brief
lead, but then Natalie Mikels went
on a six-point run on serve, only broken up by a timeout. Krysten
Garrison, who’d had serving problems last week, also had a serving
run. The Aggies took it up to an 8-point
lead and won 25-19. The Aggies took a commanding lead in Set 2
and didn’t look back. Savannah Davison, who’d also had
serving problems last week, had a run here.
Cat Kelly got her tenth kill
of the match. The Aggies took it, 25-17.
Set 3, the Aggies again had an early lead. The announcers marveled at the Aggies proficiency
in sideouts this match, which jinxed them.
The Wolverines came back to tie and take the lead. At this point, I had personal problems trying
watch on an iPad and missed the rest of the set. The Wolverines went up by 7 won it 25-16.
For Set 4, the Aggies took a 6-point lead. But after a ninth service error, the Wolverines
came back within 2. Halle Razo then aced to put the Aggie back up by 6. The Aggies would go up 10 on her run and would
win 25-14 and 3-1.
For the match, Cat Kelly
led with 17 kills, and Savannah Davison
followed with 14. Megan Hart had 5 on a rough night for her with 6 errors. She still had 6 blocks. There were 9 service errors, but 5 aces. Coach
Jordan might find that acceptable.
I may have put my finger on the Aggies’ inconsistencies
this season. I think Coach Jordan is
missing his former assistant Ben Wallis. He was like having a second head coach on the
team. Of course that meant he’d have to
leave someday to take on his own team. Coach
Wallis was interviewed on KROD the
day before. Steve Kaplowitz seems to be making an effort to promote volleyball
at UTEP, since the station got Miner Football and Men’s Basketball back. The
program is doing well under Wallis’ leadership.
He said that their match against the Aggies made the Aggies
better. I’m going to have disagree
there. It seemed wreck their confidence
actually.
9-28-19
After a short stint at Aggie Softball this morning
and a busy afternoon, I had a busy night too.
The evening was a full on ADD episode with everything on at the same
time. There were three movies on TV I
was interested in. The Cardinals and Cubs were on TV and the Brewers
and Rockies were on the radio. The Cardinals and Brewers were fighting for
the Central Division. (They both
lost.) The Rangers were playing Yankees
on another radio station. I think the Rangers
won. There was some poor reception on
that. This was the next to last game at
the Ballpark at Arlington.
Aggie Roy Lopez
And, the Aggie
Football team was playing on radio and TV.
They lost 30-17 vs
Bulldawgs. It was a shocking loss to Las Cruces High School. Oh, wait.
They were playing the Fresno State
Bulldogs. I was confused by their
very similar mascots. During the
halftime show on the radio, they mentioned the other Aggie sports, who were on
the road. Aggie Soccer had lost at South Dakota State by 4-0. That’s
not good. Aggie Volleyball won in straight sets at Seattle U. I’d thought this
was going to be an off weekend, but I ended up being pretty busy.
9-29-19
Finally, NBC
decided to show a NASCAR race
over-the-air. I don’t know why they
didn’t show their summer races here instead of on cable when there wasn’t much
competition on TV. Now, there’s plenty
on. During Clint Bowyer’s prerace interview, he stopped at one point, looked
off to the side at a TV on his RV, and said, “I think the Chiefs just scored.” Even
the drivers are watching the NFL instead.
(If they could watch in their cars, they might do it.)
NASCAR was now in their “playoffs.” They were in Charlotte this week with the track in its “Roval”
configuration. This was a fascinating
experiment last year: putting a road course in the playoffs. I was really excited for it. Too bad I didn’t see it, since it was on
cable. Apparently there was a dramatic
twin wreck at the end with Martin Truex
Jr. and Jimmie Johnson. They took
each other out coming out of the final chicane right in front of the finish
line.
Regrettably, I have no idea how the current playoff system
works. They’ve changed it too many times
and keep making it more complex and I’m not able to watch every week. It gives the announcers plenty to talk about
during the race, but I can’t follow it.
I suspect I’m not the only one. The
pity here is that the racing on this track is actually excellent. It’s quite challenging for the drivers. While open-wheel cars on road and street
courses tend to be boring races, stock cars are actually much more entertaining
there in general. They can take some
damage from the close quarters contact and keep going.
I did fully mean to recap the race. Unfortunately, the race had significant
competition on other channels that kept distracting me. The Overwatch
championship was on ABC. That Sinatraa
guy is good. On Fox, after football, they showed a WWE Wrestlemania documentary.
I’ve never seen a Wrestlemania.
Wow! Those are quite the
spectacle. I was really impressed. Of course, the constant commercial
interruptions during the race also just begged me to change channels. When they went side-by-side with the
coverage, all that did was add extra commercials.
What I did see was lots of fun. In the third stage, race leader Chase Elliot plowed right into the
barrier at Heartburn Corner on a restart.
There was another big tie-up.
Then there was a red flag. I
missed whatever caused that. There was
impending rain at the track with 7 laps left.
A lot of the race commentary centered back in the pack to see who was
going to get bumped out from the next round.
Improbably, Chase passed everyone over the course of the final stage to retake
the lead and win it. Interviewed on
track, he turned to the crowd and said, “Y’all like that?” I gave him a round of applause myself. I hope I can watch some more racing before
the end of the season.
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