Well, son's freshman's season came to an end this weekend. Wright State fell to Illinois in the regional final at Champaign. Son did not get the opportunity to play this weekend but he has many more years to fight his way on the field.
Illinois is a very quality team. I can see why they were in national seedings. That being said, I am proud of how WSU played this weekend. Lost Friday night to #2 seed Notre Dame 13-7. but had a very bad inning in bottom of 8, giving up 6 that put game out of reach.
In the battle of Ohio for best team in 2015, Saturday played 2 innings up 5-2 vs. Ohio U, then rain came pouring down, raining out the day. SP from Saturday came back on Sunday, pitched 6 more quality innings giving up 0 runs on Saturday and we won 8-3. That was first NCAA win for WSU since 93. Later that day in finals of losers bracket we got ND again, Coach called on RS JR, who had made his first start ever last weekend in Horizon league championship game going 4 innings that day (that was his longest outing his career at that point, he had been a key middle reliever up to that point). He was obviously nervous, walking first batter on 5 pitches, HC came out to talk to him and it obviously worked. He then proceed to pitch 8 innings of shut out ball gave up 4 hits, 2BB and gathered 6K. His cutter was nasty. He recorded the 2nd win of tournament and made that being the farthest WSU had ever gone. He was calm and collected during the game and after. His Dad was on cloud 9, The young man is a very quality young man and could not have happened to a nicer guy. Our fans, his teammates, coaches, everyone was going crazy for him.
We ended up losing 8-4 yesterday, but was in the game with Illinois until the top of 9.
I am so proud of this team. 2nd most wins in team history with 43, most since 87 when they were D2 national champs. 5th lowest ERA in team history and lowest since 87 (all 3 others were in 70's). Lots of other team and individual accomplishments.
My son had a great year 7-0, 2.22 ERA, 44IP. Did his job as weekday starter. Spot reliever on weekends.
I am most proud of who is was as a teammate. He was always the kid that played every inning, got every big start as pitcher, batted 3rd, etc. . Much like every kid on his team I expect. This year, he got in 13 of 60 games. Never picked up a bat (nor probably will ever again), was never the go to guy on the mound. Yet he was one of first guys out to greet guys in between innings, always on the fence cheering guys on. No one was happier for his future roommate that pitched game of his life on Sunday night (except maybe his dad) when that easily could have been my son's spot. On and on and on.
This year he grew as a man and I am forever grateful for that.