Mission accomplished! I saw Wave the Wonder Dog and petted same. Today Wave’s birthday was celebrated at the Softball game between the Aggies and Western Kentucky. I was wearing my Wave hat and Wave t-shirt like a true fanboy. There was a Wave statue giveaway up front, but I already had one. Wave and his agent showed up right after I got there. Petting and praise followed.
Inside the stadium, I ran into Marketing Director Nicole Sack. She was also wearing a Wave shirt. Coach Rodolph came in a bit later. She got a souvenir statue, but didn’t bring her adorable dog. I was looking forward to seeing them meet and become best friends (if not more). The Coach said, Kayleigh doesn’t like the heat. With that dog’s luxurious coat, no doubt. Oddly, this interlude with Wave wasn’t even the most interesting event that happened at the ballpark today.
It was warm with a little wind. It was very nice. A good crowd of 454 showed up and brought a few kids this time, unlike the aborted Autograph day earlier in the month. During the Anthem, a dad sitting below me grabbed his boy, stood him at attention, and took off the kid’s Spider-Man hat and had him hold it at his heart. There’s a good dad.
These added up fairly well, even with a change of scoring on an error after the first inning. I had some confusion with the lineup with the use of the flex player position for centerfielder Taylor Baca. I wasn’t entirely surprised by this, since Taylor’s glove is more valuable than her bat, as shown by yesterday’s performance. Essentially, this more gave the Aggies two DH’s (in theory).
I could can hear the WKU dugout singing starting in the top of the first. The Hilltoppers’ batting helmets have cute little googliy eyes on them like their mascot, Big Red. Faith Aragon started for Aggies. Trouble started with a double and an errant throw that advanced the runner to third. (Initially ruled a single and two errors.) A sac fly brought the runner in. Faith finished off the inning with a looking strikeout. 1-0 WKU.
In the bottom of the first, Devin Elam cranked the first pitch out to left field for a home run. A very happy Faith greeted her at home plate, after equalizing that unearned run. Troublingly, the next three batters went down in order. Tied at 1.
According to the PA (a new girl has been doing it the last couple of games), it was 73-degrees and sunny here and 63-degrees and breezy in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Faith got a fly out and a looking strikeout in the top of the second, but then gave up a solo home run to left center by Kennedy Stinson. The balls were flying out today. Stinson’s teammates met her at home plate spraying soap bubbles that filled the air briefly. Faith finished the inning with another looking strikeout was to Maci Masters. Masters battled. Faith and her catcher, Kendal Lunar, thought they’d gotten her with a strikeout earlier in the at bat, but the ump disagreed, so Faith had to do it again. 2-1 WKU.
The Aggies went down in order in the bottom of the second. Hilltopper pitcher, Rylan Smith had two strikeouts. The ump was trying to move the game along. I had to look twice, but Men’s Basketball Coach Hooten came in with his lovely wife and Internet sensation, Clavicular. I thought he got arrested this weekend. Oh, that’s actually Coach Hooten’s son. I’m thinking that this tall, handsome lad does well with the ladies, anyway.
The Coach sat down next to me, as his wife chatted with another fan. I had to make something of this opportunity. I mentioned he was a customer where I work at. He praised one of the ladies working up front for helping him. (She is a sweetheart.) I praised Faith and did some other babbling about the Softball team.
In the top of the third, Wave came up front and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to him. Wave barked along with the singing. On the field, an error let on the first batter and a triple by Jenna Blanton scored another unearned run for the Hilltoppers. Faith came back with a pair of strikeouts to end the inning. On one K, the crowd was unhappy with a swing that may have hit the bat and gone fair that was instead ruled a foul ball. Coach Hooten said it was fair. It ended up being another looking K anyway. “She should have swung at that one. It was too close to take,” he said. 3-1 WKU.
In the bottom of the third, the Aggies went down in order again with a couple of strikeouts. I asked the Coach about Liberty’s collapse during the season. He said they didn’t use their bench enough and rode their starters into the ground. Liberty’s coach was mad at him. “But you beat us twice,” Hooten told him. “Yeah, but you showed the other teams in the conference how we could be beaten.” I congratulated him on putting together a talented team and getting into the tournament. He thought they were talented, but not gritty and defense-minded enough.
Faith finally had a quick inning with two strikeouts in the fourth. In the bottom, after a walk, Skye Johnson smashed a 2-run homer to left center. The Aggie dugout was now singing. Smith may have gotten hurt on a pitch in the inning. She stayed in, but this was her last inning. Stinson made a nice running catch in right field to end the inning. We were tied at 3.
Coach Hooten, Wave, and a bunch of the crowd left at this point. Was it lunch time? That might have been a good thing, because the top of the fifth was brutal. Faith gave up a single, but a passed ball and a groundout advanced the runner to third. An error at short brought in the runner and then another error from third brought in another run. Two walks then loaded the bases. The crowd was getting angry with the ump again. A fan shouted out to the girls, “Don’t beat yourselves!” A bunt back to Faith got an out at the plate. The Hilltoppers had already had two successful bunts in the inning. That was one too many. A looking strikeout finally ended it, but WKU was up, 5-3.
Erica Houge came on in relief in the bottom of the fifth. The Hilltoppers had an error, but no other damage. Faith had her best inning in the top of the sixth, though you wouldn’t have known it the reactions. The crowd heckled the ump with, “Want glasses?” Faith even stared in as she was getting squeezed in the strikezone. That said, she struck out the side. She was grunting and really working out there.
During Masters’ at bat this inning there was a rather unique occurrence. The bats they’re using in college are not aluminum bats. They are BBCOR bats. What are BBCOR bats? They’re made of alloy and composite materials. (No, I don’t have a better explanation than that.) They are supposed to simulate a wooden bat without being breakable. This inning, Masters’ bat broke clean in half on a foul ball. Faith’s fastball is very hard and Masters is a big girl with a big swing. I also thought I heard her bat crack in the previous inning, but couldn’t believe it. In any case, the crowd was laughing. PA added, “She’s okay; the bat isn’t.”
Couple of young women got up in the stands. They seemed to be sunbathing given how scantily clad they were. No complaints from me. Kendal led off the bottom of the sixth with a fly ball. It kept carrying and went into the scoreboard, just like yesterday. Thankfully, there’s netting in front of the new scoreboard. Skye singled right after, but that was all for the offense. 5-4 WKU.
Faith probably gave it her all in the previous inning. The top of the seventh would have been a good place for a reliever. No relief was coming. Faith was back in. A double, a walk, and a hit batter loaded the bases with one out before Morgan hooked a shot into right field for a 2-run double. A follow up single brought in another run. This was even with the WKU fans getting mad over the count to one of their batters. There was a double steal with runners on the corners. Kendal got the runner at second, but the runner from third scored. Faith finished it off with a strikeout, but after 4 runs had scored to put WKU up, 9-4.
A fan led a herd of three bulldogs out. This place is going to the dogs and I’m totally okay with that. The Aggies went down in order in the bottom of seventh with 3 groundouts. They seemed to be conceding. The Hilltoppers win, 9-4.
This one hurt a bit. Like yesterday, this one was winnable. Aggie hitting unfortunately failed on the same day that their fielding did. The Aggie girls looked so dejected when they lined up for handshakes. Poor things. WKU did their cheer for their fans, but the stands were mostly empty. I don’t know where their fans went. Did they have something better to do? The game clocked in at 2 hours, 13 minutes, so it did run a bit long.
Gameballs. WKU again spread around the offense. I’ll tag Morgan Sharpe for her 2-RBI double in the seventh that broke it open. Erica Houge gets another nod for getting the 3-inning, 1-run save. For the Aggies, Skye Johnson went 2 for 3 with a game-tying 2-run homer. Faith Aragon was 0 for 3 (1 for 7 for the last two games) and gave up 9 runs. However, she was working with 4 errors behind her, which led to 4 unearned runs. Faith had 12 strikeouts and gave up 7 hits in 7 innings. Ask WKU if she pitched well.
Faith’s dad was in the bathroom while I was there. He was talking to someone else and he was hot. He was blaming the Coach for not putting a good-hitting line up out there. He was still going when I left. His daughter is being ridden like a borrowed horse, starting two of the three games in this series and hitting in all of them.
The team is flawed. The rest of the pitching staff isn’t there. There are holes in the lineup and on defense. There isn’t a way to plug all of these gaps. Even 2 DH’s and 2 pinch hitters in the 8 spot didn’t help today’s offense. WKU seemed to be hitting the ball away from Taylor in center and at the weak spots in the Aggie defense. When the Aggies win, it feels like they’re overachieving. When they lose, all these problems come up.
After the game, I called dad and asked if he wanted me to bring over lunch. He agreed to the $10 large Dominos pizza I’d seen advertised. It turned out the deal required that you order it through their app. The person at the counter gave me a bit of a discount, but it was the same overpriced, not-that-great pizza that they usually serve. Another restaurant gets on my crap list, like Jimmie John’s did. I hope I don’t run out of places to eat out at.
Two NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament games on. The first one was a blowout. The second one was looking like a blowout, so we continued watching a Jack Ryan series from a few years ago. It was some outlandish scenario about overthrowing the dictator of Venezuela. How preposterous. (The episode we watched was good. It took six episodes for this to get good, though.)
We still had the game on (muted) and somehow, UConn got back into the game with Duke from the being 19 points down. CBS did Duke no favors by putting up a graphic stating that a #1 seed with a 15-point lead had never lost in the tournament. In the closing seconds, UConn, down by 2, was trying to foul and Duke instead turned it over. In the last second, UConn made a long range 3 that swished in for the win. It was a classic. That made me feel a little bit better about how I spent my day.
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