Erik VanMeetren: Ready for an electric start to Rebel baseball season

Erik VanMeetren here. I’m a senior on the UNLV baseball team and I will be sharing with you my thoughts this season through this blog.

I’m really excited about this opportunity and it’s going to be an interesting experience. I’ve been reading different baseball blogs for quite a while now and I enjoy it. I hope you enjoy what I have to say about our team this season!

A little about me … I was born and raised in Las Vegas and went to Bishop Gorman before coming to UNLV. I grew up playing baseball and had some good times as a Gael and now as a Rebel.

I’ve been playing catcher since I was 11. Our team needed a catcher so they stuck me back there and I never looked back. Now it’s hard to believe that I’ve been a three-year starter at that position for UNLV. I feel that the catcher is like the quarterback on the baseball field. The QB calls the plays in football and the catcher calls the pitches and is in charge of directing people where to go in baseball. There are a lot of responsibilities that go with playing catcher and I love that. To me that is one of the most fun things about playing baseball.

Obviously, I work heavily with our pitching staff each season, and last year we were stellar. We had guys with a ton of experience going into last season. Fed (Erick Fedde) was a weekend starter for two years and Johnny (John Richy) did pretty much the same thing. Having them was awesome and they were fantastic last year. It was good to see them get drafted as high as they did and be rewarded for their success.

Our starting pitchers this year are pretty good, too. It’s awesome to have Zak Qualls back. The kid is an absolute stud and he has so much potential. As his teammates, we just need to keep him up and support him. He has been awesome.

Having Kenny Oakley back will be huge too. He has been great and was one of the, if not THE best pitcher this fall. He has a fantastic presence on the mound.

We also have D.J. Myers here and he has been amazing. He earned himself a weekend starting spot to open the season because he throws strikes and he has three great pitches. It makes my life easy when I tell him where to throw and he puts it right there. We also have some good experience coming into the season with Bryan Bonnell, Joey Lauria, Zack Hartman, Brayden Torres and Matt Thomas. I’m really excited about our entire pitching staff.

We open this season on Friday against Nebraska and they are a good team. They are very well coached and fundamentally sound. Offensively, those kids could swing it last year and they were one of the better teams we faced. Every single one of those guys in that lineup was a tough out and we expect that again this year. Our pitchers are really going to have to be on this weekend and so am I. We’re looking forward to the challenge. It is a great way to kick off the year and we would love to go out and get a few wins.

There are some festivities before our game starts on Friday that should be pretty exciting. We will have the Mountain Ridge Little League team and Bryce Harper throw out the first pitch together. It is going to be way cool. I can guarantee every guy on our team watched that Mountain Ridge team play and they were thinking, “Holy cow, I wish I got a chance to do that.” These kids are 12 years old and they were having the time of their lives. How cool is that? It was awesome to watch those kids and they are so talented.

And then you also mix in Bryce. I’ve been competing against him since day one. I grew up here with him and he is just a great guy to watch. He tears it up 150 percent wherever he goes. We were watching him hit batting practice and he has so much pride in every swing. It is pretty impressive to watch. Having both him and the Little League team out there before our game is going to be electric.

I’m excited about this season and I look forward to seeing you all out at Earl E. Wilson Stadium. It’s a great place to watch a game and we are going to be fun to watch, I promise you that.

Thanks for reading my blog. I’m looking forward to next week and telling you about our first weekend of the season. Go Rebels!!!

-Erik VanMeetren

UNLV opens its season against Nebraska this weekend (Friday, 6:05 p.m.; Saturday, 2:05 p.m.; Sunday, 1:05 p.m.) at Earl E. Wilson Stadium.