Player Diary 5.9.18
Welcome to the 2018 Potomac State Baseball player diary homepage. This season, Sophomore's Mitchell Henshaw (Brockport High School / Brockport, NY), and Jeff Wong (George Washington High School / Charleston, WV) will take the lead on the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary. Note: Wong's entry will be in bold font.
Welcome back Catamount fans to another edition of the Potomac State Baseball player diary! On Wednesday, May 2nd us sophomores played our last game at Golden Park. I cannot speak for everyone, but for me this was a sad moment. Going into the game the only thing on my mind was getting the win. It was a huge Region XX game against Chesapeake. We needed the win to create a three-way tie for first place. We ended up winning the game 10-8! Us sophomores were able to hear Country Roads one last time, and that was a special moment. That is one moment that I will remember forever. It may have been the last game at Golden Park, but it was not our last game. We still have the best time of the season ahead of us.
The regular season is officially over. Your Catamounts finished the regular season with a record of 35-9. With that being said, it is time for the Region XX playoffs. This year's tournament will be held at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland. There was a three-way tie for first place in the region. Us, Chesapeake and Harford were all 4-2 in regional play. The committee took it on their hands to create the seeding, and the one seed will be Chesapeake, the two seed is Harford, and we are the three seed. We will open up tournament play Thursday at 1pm against Harford.
The boys are ready to go! Throw the regular season out the window because anything can happen in the playoffs. After our last games on Saturday, Coach Little gave us Sunday and Monday off to rest our bodies. Sophomore infielder Seth Wright went home to Grafton, WV for the mini break. "It was nice to have a little break before we head off to the Region XX tournament. I was able to go home and visit with some old friends and get my mind off baseball for a few days before the best part of our season. I was ready to come back for practice on Tuesday and get after it with the boys. We have our last practice Wednesday morning and then we will be heading out to Harford, I could not be more excited". Seth "Dub" Wright recently committed to continue his education and playing career next year at Marshall University! I was so pumped for him when he told me the good news. Dub has worked incredibly hard and is very deserving of this! I would also like to give a shout out to my roommate Alex Taylor who committed to play at VCU next year! "AT" has had centerfield on lock down the past two years. Nothing but good things ahead for him and I am excited to follow his career there.
I wanted to share with you guys what we do all day now that classes are all done and we are the only people on the campus. You may think it can be boring, but it is actually quite fun and entertaining for us. When school is in session, we all typically hang out the majority of the time. Now that there is no one else here, all we can do is hang out as a team and it is great team bonding. A day for us typically starts with a bunch of us going to breakfast. With the cafeteria closed on campus, we have to go out in town to get our food. The Royal on Main St. Is a hot spot for us in the mornings. After that we will come back to the dorms and most of the kids spend their time wisely by playing Fortnite (a video game). You may think this is very typical for young kids to be playing video games but let me tell ya, these games get extremely intense. After a couple hours of Fortnite we will head to the clubhouse to get ready for practice. With no more classes, all of our focus is on baseball and winning a championship. After practice, Sheetz is our go too for a quick dinner so everyone can head back to the dorms for more Fortnite. It is a lot of fun to be able to hang out with such great teammates all day.
That will be it for this week's edition. Make sure to check in on the team twitter to follow us in the Region XX tournament! Feel free to follow the team on Twitter @PotomacStateBB and Instagram @potomacstatebaseball. You can also follow me on Twitter @mhenshaw4 for some exclusive coverage of the team. If you have any questions or comments about the player diaries you can email me at mjh0025@mix.wvu.edu. Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it.
Catamount fans! Welcome back for another week in the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary. This is a special week for the 2018 Catamounts as we head to Bel Air, Maryland to play in the Region 20 tournament as the 3rd seeded team. The tournament kicks off on Thursday, May 10th and concludes on Saturday the 12th. The winner of the region will head to New York City to battle it out with the winners from Region 10 and 15 to see who goes to Grand Junction, Colorado to play for a national title in the NJCAA World Series.
I want to take a step back from the hustle and bustle time of playoffs, and appreciate where I have spent the past 2 years of my life. After my freshman year of college, I was looking to transfer to a junior college from Florida Gulf Coast University. Potomac State had approached me in high school about coming to play here, but my 18-year-old mind really wanted to get out of West Virginia, which wasn’t a mistake, but was definitely not the best option for me. I realized that I was unprepared for baseball at the the NCAA Division 1 Level at the time, and wanted a good step in-between high school play and the top level of college baseball.
I gave Coach Little a call early that summer and was surprised to be welcomed with such open arms after essentially shrugging him off at a WVU Baseball camp where he saw me play in high school. I was apprehensive about moving to Keyser, WV, but was met with a nice surprise when I got here. Yes, the town is small and the options for food and activity are very limited. However, the people that I met upon arrival made that go away. Teammates of any sport have a special bond that appears almost overnight. The bond that I made with my teammates at the beginning of both of my years here were the most instantaneous friendships I have experienced. When an entire team of guys comes together, buys in to what the coaches are trying to accomplish, and stands behind each other, it creates a large force that is very hard to deal with on the baseball field. This year, we rode that wave of energy to a 35-9 regular season finish.
As I get to the final stage of my tenure at Potomac State, I am appreciating Keyser and my experiences here more and more. I arrived here a young, arrogant, unfocused kid with no real idea of where I wanted to go and do with my life. I am definitely not claiming to have it all figured out, but I am much closer to that than I was before coming here. 2 years of representing the ‘PS’ in the manner that is demanded of us has had a large part in shaping me into a man. Being one of the old guys on the team, I try to get the point across to the freshman that Potomac State Baseball, for you, doesn’t last forever. In fact, it lasts for a very short time and we must do everything in our power in this small window of time to further the program and continue to pave the road that was paved for us.
I have made friendships in Keyser that will last until the day I die. The nature of the town forces us to become brothers; studying together, eating together, entertaining ourselves together, and showing up to the field to go to work together makes for a very tight-nit group. Stemming from a lack of things to do, my teammates and I spent plenty of our time in the outdoors. From Golden Park to the Fire Tower, us Catamounts have soaked up the town from many different angles.
The memories that I have made in Keyser while playing for Potomac State are some of my favorites ones and will stay with me forever, even though most of us are moving on to the next chapter in life. For me, Keyser represents a get-away from what I was dealing with coming out of high school. Being here refocused me and set me on a path to success. To Coach Little, Coach Schafer, and Coach K: Thank you so much for everything you have done for me. I have improved greatly as a pitcher and even more as a young man, and that is due to the time and effort that our coaches put forth. Thank you, Keyser. Thank you, Potomac State.