Senior Jeff Thomas will be blogging throughout the season about his experiences as a member of the Huskie baseball team. The outfielder from Loves Park, Ill., leads the team in hitting and recently was named to the All-MAC team. Thomas' latest posting talks about the opening of the MAC Tournament in Chillicothe, Ohio.

May 22, 2008

MAC Tournament
(NOTE: Entry was written prior to the Huskies' second game at the MAC Tournament, vs. Kent State on May 22)

All right, the MAC tournament is finally here and we've taken the first game (13-7 over Ball State). That first game is always good to win because it guarantees that you are in it for the next couple days, which means more baseball for us.

Coming into the tournament, we seemed to have a mental focus on what we needed to do as a team in the first game. Ball State is a great hitting team and they are did their thing to go up 6-0, but being the feisty team that we are, we did not quit and came back in the middle innings and won the game.

On the night before the first game, we had a gathering of all the teams at the stadium for "opening ceremonies." Coach Jocko (Steve Joslyn) was in the coaches' fungo hitting contest that they held and he represented well (finished 2nd to Eastern Michigan head coach Jake Boss in a "playoff"). After that they concluded with a fireworks show. The food was pretty good - it was your standard hot dogs, brats, burgers, and desserts at the ballpark.

Tonight we hope to keep our momentum going as we face a pretty good Kent State team, the top-seed in the tournament. Hopefully everybody that couldn't make it out here is listening in back home or watching online.

Until next time ...

JT