Welcome to the 2019 Potomac State Baseball player diary homepage. This season, Sophomores Andrew Berry (Morgantown High School / Morgantown, WV), and Joel Spishock (Carmichaels High School / Carmichaels, PA) will take the lead on the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary. Note: Berry’s entry will be in BOLD font.
Hello again Catamount fans and welcome to Chapter 6 in the 2019 Potomac State Baseball player diary. I know things haven’t been all that interesting leading up to this point, but there will be a lot of action soon to come! As of today, Wednesday the 13th, we play in 3 days!! I myself am already starting to experience some anxiety and eagerness that comes with the beginning of the season. Time has really flown by this year and I can’t believe that is coming Friday, the 15, we will be loading up the coach bus to head down south to Louisburg, NC. One can only hope that it’ll be a little warmer and less snowy down there.
This past week, business for the team was as usual. Due to the cold, unfortunately we were back in the gym for many of the practices. During these practices, Coach Schafer covered a few more team concepts to get us ready for the upcoming games, such as more signs, as well as base running strategies. Other than that, we made use of our time and put some more hours into developing our offensive game. You’d think with all of the hitting that goes on that our arms would fall off, but here, it is all a part of the process we love and are devoted to. We take the time to take so many swings so that the season comes, we can do our best to produce runs, help our pitchers, and as Coach Schafer always says, “score more runs than the other team”. What we do in the gym is nowhere close to what we will be seeing in the coming days, but by always trying to put ourselves in gameday situations, I have full confidence that our hitters are ready for whatever comes at us.
As far as our pitchers, this past weekend they have worked all the way up to throwing 100% in Coach Little’s off-season throwing program. At this point, their arms are just about ready for gameday endurance. By throwing 100%, this also gives us hitters a greater challenge, preparing us as well. One of the key parts to a team, I believe, is challenging each other day in and day out, and during our weekend practices, the team does a great job at getting after it and battling each other. While throwing at full potential, pitchers still worked the same system that has been implemented in the past weekends. They would throw 5 pitches to a hitter, and face three hitters per inning, throwing 3 innings total.
This past Saturday, to get in a more spacious environment for hitting, our practice was held at the Wheelhouse Academy in Fort Ashby, WV. Personally, I had never been to this place before, but I had heard good things about it from my teammates Conner Kelly (Cumberland, MD) and Trent Robison (Edinboro, PA) who visit there, so I was very eager to go there and get some hitting in. To sum everything up, it was a great indoor facility that really had a lot to offer. It was about a 20-minute drive from campus, which was nice, and had a lot of accommodations in it that led to a great and well-organized team practice. In the facility, there was a lot of open space that housed an all turf ground, 5 cages and pitching machines, as well as other hitting utilities. So, Saturday morning, we geared up, stretched out, and got to work. To start things off, the team did some hitting off the pitching machines, did some front toss flips, soft toss, and tee work. While we did that, pitchers warmed up and got ready to throw live. After about 30 min, we pulled back all the cages, set up the mound, and had the pitchers throw live to hitters. We were able to get a lot accomplished during our time there to prepare for this weekend, and I am very thankful for the guys at the Wheelhouse for letting our team use their facility. To see how the practice went, and some insight on the facility, check out my video this week on the Potomac State Baseball YouTube page. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND GIVING IT A LOOK, THERE’S SOME GREAT FOOTAGE FOR THE FANS!
On Sunday, we were back to the routine in the gym, seeing live pitching for the last time before our games this weekend. Also, it is our pitcher’s last time throwing to hitters before doing it for real.
All the hard work that the team has put in during the fall and winter leads up to this weekend. This weekend will not be a deciding factor in whether our team goes to a National Championship or not, but it marks the beginning of a journey for us as a unit. For freshman, they’ll get to experience what playing college baseball is all about. The nerves, sounds, anxiety, fast pace, excitement, heartbreak, fun, all of that will be thrown right at them, and they will have to learn to adjust quickly. For the sophomores, it can be the beginning of the last season of organized baseball for some, or it can be a stepping to bigger things for others. But with our futures set aside, one of the main focuses for sophomores is to set examples as leaders, and to bring the team together as one, with just two goals, which is really one, and that is to win games, and make it to Grand Junction, Colorado for a National Championship. I personally couldn’t be more excited for what is ahead, and I know it’s going to be a roller coaster going through the season with many ups and downs, but I am fortunate to be able to head into the season with the group of guys we have. I believe we’re more than ready this season. Check in next week to get the inside info on our first games of the season this upcoming weekend!
Thank you for tuning into this week’s player diary! Please join in next week for updates on the team, as well as some exclusive team videos. Also, for more coverage follow the teams twitter (@PotomacStateBB) and Instagram (@potomacstatebaseball). If you have any questions or suggestions on videos, please email me at jts0033@mix.wvu.edu.
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Welcome back Catamount faithful to this week’s edition of the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary. For this week’s edition, I wanted to let you readers experience one of our weekly activities as a team. Since around the middle of fall semester, a group of players on the team decided to begin a bible study group and hold a one hour meeting every Sunday evening. Depending on how busy players are each week, the group has fluctuated anywhere from 4 to 12 members attending the weekly meetings. The group began as just a couple players gathering at one of the study tables in the lounge area on the second floor of our University Place dormitory. Since, it has become a Housing and Residence Life sponsored event that takes place in the conference room in our dorm which is called the Heritage room. The bible study serves as a great team bonding activity on top of the players learning more about God.
Typically, we begin each session with every person describing how their week was and anything that was going on. Following that, Dylan Dunkley (Murfreesboro, TN) or Dontae Johnson (Evanston, IL) alternate week by week on taking the lead for that week’s study. They have been very involved in church and wanted to spread the word to as many players who are willing to listen. The study begins by discussing the topic they have prepared for us, while usually giving one or two scriptures for each person to read that relates to the topic. We then go through a reflection period talking about what the discussion meant to us before we pray and go our separate ways for the night. To take a deeper look into a typical bible study, check out this week’s player diary video:
Every couple weeks, Dontae and Dunks tend to mix in something fun like a movie or inspirational video to keep everyone interested. It also spreads the word of god in ways other than just lecturing and discussing. For example, a week or two before Christmas break, we all gathered and watched the movie “Greater” which is about Brandon Burlsworth. He was a walk-on turned all-American for Arkansas that was drafted by the Colts in the third round of the 1999 NFL Draft. The movie was perfect for us players as it showed how a relationship with Christ and determination can help us achieve anything we may wish.
As for what has been going on around the team, preparation for our season opener is in full swing. Each player is chomping at the bit more as every practice goes by leading up to our travel day this Friday. This past weekend we had our final weekend of live at-bats where we faced the pitchers at full speed. Due to the temperature and weather outside, we were not able to practice or inner squad scrimmage on the turf. Instead, on Saturday we practiced at a local indoor facility The Wheelhouse Academy in Fort Ashby, WV which Joel provided a video about. Sunday, we returned back to the Lough gymnasium for the rest of our live at-bats. During those practices, us hitters were able to use our brand-new Rawlings Velo and 5150 bats provided for the spring season thanks to Rawlings.
These bats are the top of the line 2019 models from Rawlings and after our test day in the fall, we could not wait to get these bats in our hands. Great comments have been made from every hitter about how balanced the bats are and how great the ball feels coming off the bat. We truly are lucky to get to swing the best bats in the business!
On Tuesday, every player also received our equipment/travel bags for the spring leading up to our first road trip! Friday, the team will depart from Keyser and head down South to Louisburg, NC to face Pitt Community College in our season opener on Saturday. We then face Louisburg College later that evening and then once more Sunday before we head back home for class on Monday morning. Joel and I will be sure to give all of you behind-the scenes and some in-game action of the weekend ahead.
After last week’s interview with Dontae Johnson, I decided to continue the rapid-fire portion (10 questions with…) and will include a new player each week. This week I will be doing 10 questions with… Sophomore Brandon Schamp (Marietta, Ohio).
What is your favorite meal in the school Cafeteria?
Macaroni and Cheese Pizza.
What is your favorite baseball experience to date?
Winning my District Tournament in High School.
If you could have any superpower, what would you pick?
Metamorphosis (the ability to transform into any animal).
Favorite professional sport and sports team?
The NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Who is the best Fortnite player on the team?
Foster Conis. I am a close second.
What teammate is the most gullible?
Andrew Berry
Who is the ladies’ man of the team?
Austin Chavis
Favorite Dessert?
Raspberry Cheesecake
Favorite restaurant in Keyser?
Castiglia’s
What are you most excited about for the upcoming season?
One last journey into battle with my fellow sophomores.
That’s all for this week’s edition. If you have anything you would like to see in the diaries or learn more about, you can contact me thru email (akb0019@mix.wvu.edu) or twitter (@andrewberry_15). I would also encourage you to follow the team on social media. Please subscribe to our YouTube account @PotomacStateBaseball to be notified when Joel or I upload a video. Thank you for reading, and until next week, Go Catamounts!