Monthly Archives: April 2015

2015 Fordham Softball – Week 15 / A Beautiful Day at Bahoshy

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Monday, April 27, 2015 – George Washington University / Bronx, New York

My dad and I embrace during Saturday's senior day ceremony in the Bronx. (Courtesy of Tom Wasiczko)

My dad and I embrace during Saturday’s senior day ceremony in the Bronx. (Courtesy of Tom Wasiczko)

I don’t think it’ll truly feel real until it’s actually over. Until the very last out is recorded, wherever and whenever that may be, and I walk off the field for the final time. But, on Saturday, the end felt as real and impending as it ever has. 

Last year, after this very weekend, I wrote about the bittersweet nature of senior day and lamented about the loss of my friends and teammates to graduation. I mentioned the array of emotions I felt while watching Elise, Tina, Gabby, and Bri make the trek across Bahoshy Field with their parents on senior day, as I cried for the end of their softball careers and the approaching end of my own. I imagined my senior day as being an emotional roller coaster ride, resulting in tears and sadness, with more “bitter” than “sweet” feelings, as I attempted to hold on for dear life to the game that has been my constant for 16 years. 

On Saturday, however, senior day was nothing like what I had imagined it would be. Sure, a few tears were shed from my eyes while I held onto my dad’s arm and watched my friends and their parents get honored before us. But, I wasn’t a ball of emotions like I had been a year before and had expected to be when my name was finally called. Rather, I felt poised and at peace, as a genuine sense of happiness filled me on this day of celebration.

And what a beautiful day of celebration it was, as quality time was spent with friends, teammates, and our extended Fordham Softball family. The added bonus of the day was the dominance we Rams displayed on the field, as we walked away from senior day two wins richer, both by way of the 5-inning mercy-rule against George Washington University. 

The greatest source of my happiness on Saturday, however, was in sharing the entire experience with my dad, who has made every great thing in my life possible and has been by my side through each step of my 16-year softball and 22-year life journey. Together, we’ve defied the odds and made it through some incredible obstacles to get to Saturday’s celebration. Being able to share in that victory alone superseded anything great that happened on the field that day. 

While I felt happy, honored, and truly proud to be a Ram on Saturday, what I didn’t feel was sadness about the inevitable and approaching end of my softball career like I thought I would. Though part of me wishes I could don the maroon and white forever, another part of me knows that all good things must eventually come to an end. And when that day arrives in the upcoming weeks, the time will be right. Until then, I plan on making all of my remaining days in a Fordham uniform beautiful ones.

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2015 Fordham Softball – Week 14 / Surviving the Ups and Downs of a Crazy Game

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Friday, April 17, 2015 – St. Bonaventure University / Olean, New York

(Courtesy of Tom Wasiczko)

(Courtesy of Tom Wasiczko)

We play a crazy game. One in which a team can get clobbered one game and then walk off the field as winners two hours later against the same team in stunning, come-from-behind fashion. One that allows a streaking squad with a losing record to sneak into a conference tournament as the dark horse and have an opportunity to advance to the NCAA’s big dance. One that sees a player struggling at the plate for a few games, only to wake up one day and inexplicably catch fire. Ours is the craziest of games, one could argue.   

And on this team, in this conference, at this juncture in the season, the craziness is quite often on full display. More than in each of my previous three seasons, the league is wide open this year and the conference championship is pretty much any team’s for the taking. Besides maybe one or two teams at the bottom of the standings, there isn’t much of a disparity between the squads in the Atlantic 10 this season, making things equally as exciting and unknown for the upcoming conference tournament in a few weeks. 

In the midst of all the unpredictability, however, it’s often hard for teams and players to get on a roll, and harder yet, to stay rolling. The inevitable ups and downs of a long season can be disheartening, and oftentimes derailing, but they’re all just part of the process, and ultimately, what you sign up for as a college softball player. 

A midweek conference tilt against St. Bonaventure this past week produced lopsided results similar to the ones I alluded to above. Following a seven-hour bus ride up to Olean, New York, we Rams eased through game one of Wednesday’s doubleheader and won 10-2, while extending our winning streak to five games. Game two, however, summed up the baffling nature of our sport quite perfectly. As the heavily favored team in the contest, we sat on a 1-0 lead for most of the quickly moving game, despite outhitting our opponents and driving multiple balls to the warning track through six innings. The home half of the sixth saw the wheels start to fall off for us, however, and thus, that hot, foreshadowing feeling of impending disaster on the softball diamond began to set in. Sure enough, the upstart Bonnies rode the momentum all the way to a walk-off victory in the bottom of the seventh inning, once again showing that the favored team doesn’t always win in softball. 

The loss to St. Bonaventure was certainly frustrating, as all losses are, but I think we quickly came to terms with it and realized that it is just the nature of the unpredictable game we play. It’s important to just keep on keeping on, especially at this critical point in the season when each game matters for tournament seeding.

In order to survive the ups and downs of college softball, and not become derailed by them, sometimes you just have to toss things up to the unpredictable nature of our sport. In this game, you have to roll with the punches and know that it is only a matter of time before the craziness swings back into your favor again. And ultimately, it is in trusting that your team will bounce back and be the one walking off the field as the inexplicable winner that will get you through the thicket. 

2015 Fordham Softball – Week 13 / Showing Up For Battle and Winning the Fight

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Friday, April 10, 2015 – University of Massachusetts / Amherst, Massachusetts

Our 2014 A10 championship team got honored at Yankee Stadium this week. A surreal experience for Yankees fans and non-fans alike. (Courtesy of Tom Wasiczko)

Our 2014 A10 championship team got honored at Yankee Stadium this week. A surreal experience for Yankees fans and non-fans alike. (Courtesy of Tom Wasiczko)

Last week, for the first time during softball season since I started this blog at the beginning of 2014, I failed to produce a written entry that either previewed or recapped what my teammates and I were experiencing along our season’s journey. My decision not to write last week wasn’t because I had too much homework or because I got preoccupied with other things in my life. Rather, it was because not even the words that I often look to for solace and escape could save me from what I was feeling following an Easter weekend that saw us drop two of our three games against Dayton in harrowing fashion. 

During what has been an up-and-down season, things looked as promising as they have all year for us before we took the field at Fordham last Saturday. Following a convincing two-game sweep over LaSalle the weekend before, and a solid victory over Dayton on Friday in the first game of our three-game series, none of us expected to drop back-to-back games and get outscored 13-1 on our home field on the day before Easter.

Going into the games on Saturday, we had expected to win and protect our house. But, from the time the umpire signaled for the first pitch to be thrown, we inexplicably looked and played like shells of ourselves. We played embarrassing softball on our home field that day, and fourteen innings later, the scores of both games certainly reflected the collective lull that we could not snap out of in the third base dugout at Bahoshy Field. 

Upon reflection, however, it is clear that our first mistake of that day was that, by and large, we came to the field expecting to simply show up and win. We fell into the trap of thinking things would be easy on Saturday just because we had played well on Friday and won our first game of the series handily. Nonetheless, we were quickly reminded by the Flyers that we need to do a whole lot more than just show up to win in this league.

Sometimes, I think we tend to forget that winning is no easy feat. We learned last weekend, though, that just because it has happened in the past, doesn’t mean that it is guaranteed to happen in the present or the future. Plus, as the two-time defending conference champions, everyone in the A10 circles our name on their calendars. And this year, not only is a proverbial target on our backs, but it is also the size of a billboard and has flashing lights on it. We have too often failed to remember this.

But, thanks to Dayton, we won’t forget it going forward. Throughout this past week since our Dayton series, it has been reiterated to us by our coaches that we absolutely have to come to the field ready for battle if we even have a chance at winning. Or else, any team in this league is capable of exploiting our complacency and taking it to us. Trust me, we’ve learned this lesson the hard way.

Now, as I sit in my hotel room awaiting the start of our series against UMass tomorrow, I find solace in the words that evaded me last weekend. I know that we have learned from our letup against Dayton, and now have a fresh understanding that a target exists on our backs. It’s up to us to earn the victories we desire and protect the championship that is ours because absolutely nothing will be given to us.

Starting this weekend, it’s time to not only show up for battle, but also to win the fight.