While the last few weeks have been characterized by monotony, this past week flew by as I anticipated.

Thursday, we took a quick BP after our guys got out of class and were scheduled to depart at 5. Needless to say we didn’t leave until 5:15 - an ominous beginning that proved to foreshadow our play in the tournament. We stayed on the beach at the Springmaid Resort, who also happened to be the sponsor of the weekend’s games.

Coming off my red-shirt year, the anticipation of game day has grown substantially.

Thursday night, I slept in 30-minute shifts, frequently checking the clock to see if I was any closer to the 7:15 wake-up call. You think in five years of wake-up calls and continental breakfasts, I would be used to it by now.

The 7:45 team breakfast provided me with a first, breakfast with the opposition. The breakfast was like our play that day; bad. In fact, the next two days, we had little to cheer about after being taken behind the woodshed by two good teams, Virginia and Coastal Carolina.

Several of last year’s core players made the trip down to South Carolina including Chad Tilley, Kevin Regan and Paul Bennett, who were instrumental in the championship run. We are pretty close-knit group of guys at Elon, those who play here now are connected with those who have played here before us. I felt our play was embarrassing to not only ourselves, but those guys who traveled all this way to see us play.

Sunday’s starter, Zach Booker, and I went out to dinner Saturday night at Landry’s, where we finally found some good seafood. We didn’t talk about the next day’s game too much, but we both knew the importance. Nobody likes using the cliché, a “must win,” especially this early in the season, but Sunday’s game against North Florida felt like one. At the very least, we needed to play better than we had so far.

Things went from bad to worse when ‘Book’ had to leave the game early after a line drive hit off his foot. It is never good when Jodi, our trainer, is on the field as much as she was this weekend. Our lineup was already feeling the effects of losing Donny Jobe, our second baseman, with a broken finger suffered during Game 1 against Virginia.

As coaches like to say, "One man's injury is another man's opportunity." In Sunday's finale, we called upon freshman J.D. Reichenbach. Talk about pressure, in your first college game, your team is 0-2 and down 1-0, the bullpen is depleted from the two games before, and you are the last line of defense for a team that fully expected to leave the tournament with a winning record.

In the pitchers/catchers meeting Sunday morning, coach talked about how we needed a pitcher to step up. J.D. more than stepped up, showing poise beyond his years in delivering four shutout innings. We finally scratched across a few runs, and the bullpen finished off a 7-1 win.

A win makes for an easier bus ride home, but I still couldn't get the bad taste of losing 2 of 3 out of my mouth. I think I hate losing more than I like winning. Unfortunately, we don't have any mid-week games, so I'll have to wait all week until St. Joseph's comes to town.

Drew Davis

(photo courtesy of Elon Media Relations Office)