Wins, fans make for a great opening weekend

Erik VanMeetren here again. I want to start this blog by giving you, the fans, a huge thanks for coming out to support us all weekend. You guys were awesome and it was one of the coolest experiences playing in front of so many people. Hopefully you had as good as time as we did.

It was way cool to have the sellout crowd, Mountain Ridge Little League and Bryce Harper there at Wilson Stadium for opening night.

The kids from Mountain Ridge were hilarious. They came into the clubhouse with us after batting practice and we were having dance battles with them. They were really funny to watch and listen to. It was just really cool talking to those guys and seeing how they look at everything. A ton of people came out for them and Bryce, which is awesome, and they got to stay for a great ball game.

Overall the series against No. 23 Nebraska was really great. We pitched our butts off last weekend. It was really awesome to see all of our guys step up; they all pitched well. Friday night, we played a good game, but just had some untimely hitting and lost 2-0. On Saturday and Sunday, we hit a little bit better in the right spots and were able to pick up a 5-3 win and a 3-0 win, respectively. It was huge to have that series win and it was good to get the nerves of the first weekend out of the way.

All of our pitchers did great, but it was really awesome to see D.J. Myers pick up some accolades after his performance. He was dotting the zone left and right. Anywhere he wanted to throw, he was throwing it. So that was way cool for him and its nice for him to get off to a great start and have some confidence going into the rest of the season. It was so much fun catching him.

As the catcher on the team, the coaches have a lot of trust in me to work with the pitchers and call the game. I may call the pitches, but the pitcher still has to throw it. I made a few mistakes, but my pitchers picked me up. Overall I think we did pretty well. We held a top-25 team to only five runs total runs in three games. I was pleased with that. If we can hold teams to five runs every weekend, we are going to go a long way.

On Tuesday we came up short in our first road game of the year, falling to Grand Canyon 7-0. But it was a great growing experience for our guys. Some of our freshman pitchers were able to get into the game, and as a whole they did well and did their job. A couple of those kids are from around there (Phoenix), so it was cool for them to play in front of their friends and family. They are going to have some confidence the next time they take the mound.

Offensively we didn’t show up as much as we thought we would. But that is baseball and sometimes those things happen.

Our next opponent is Pacific and we will host them for four games starting on Friday at 6:05 p.m. PT. First pitch for Saturday’s game is set for 2:05 p.m., Sunday’s game is set for 1:05 p.m. and we will play a rare Monday game at 2:05 p.m.

We are going to have to come out and play well. We can’t look past them for sure. Two years ago we faced them and a guy who wasn’t supposed to be one of their better pitchers absolutely carved us up. There is a chance we might see him again this weekend.

We have to come out firing on all cylinders and come out with some energy. We need to bounce back from that Tuesday game. Everyone was pretty upset about the GCU game, but we have moved on and we are ready to get going again. I think we will be all right.

Thanks for reading Rebel fans. I appreciate all the kind words about the blog and I look forward to seeing you all out at Earl E. Wilson Stadium this weekend!

Go Rebels!!

-Erik VanMeetren