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 faithful and as always, thank you for tuning into yet another Potomac State Baseball player diary entry. During this time, I wish I could be giving you guys the review from what happened in our games last weekend, but sadly I cannot. The Potomac State Baseball team was all juiced up and ready to load the bus for the long road trip, but unfortunately, Mother Nature had some other plans. This past week, Louisburg, NC received a decent amount of rainfall which put a damper on our opening weekend. Any baseball fanatic or player will say that baseball is truly a very hard to play, because of the weather. One of the hardest parts of it is the meant side of dealing with the weather. For example, if you are expected to play, but because the weather is calling for rain, you make up in your mind that you won’t be playing that day. And then suddenly, the forecast changes and it’s going to be sunny, then you are completely unprepared to do your job on the field. This is why Coach Little always preaches to us to be mentally ready to play at all the time, don’t focus on the weather, focus on your job to do when game time comes. Needless to say, we were all fully prepared to play this weekend, and eager to say the least. Hearing from coach that the trip was cancelled due to weather definitely sucked, but for us as a team it just meant one thing, and no it wasn’t that we just had to actually go to class on Friday. It meant, we had a whole other week to ready ourselves for this coming weekend when we go down to play Walters State and Florence Darlington in Sumter, SC. Both of which are nationally ranked in the country and will be great competition for us.

On a non-related baseball note, I would like to give a quick shout out to the boys’ basketball here at Potomac State. Currently they remain undefeated and are ranked #1 in the country among D2 Junior Colleges. Kind of crazy to think that can happen in little old Keyser, but I’ve been to a couple games and these dudes are legit! They’ve made some big improvements from last year under Coach White, and I expect to see big things out of them come playoffs.

Now back to baseball, we had another good weekend, and will continue to put some more work in to get ready for our opening day on Saturday. Pitchers stuck to the same routine that they had used the prior weekend, throwing 4 innings each at full speed, 15 pitches per inning. It was another opportunity for us to get our work in the gym, and for our pitchers to work a little more on their command before they do it for real this weekend. For us hitters, it was one last chance to see some more live pitching before the curtain falls on Saturday and we have D1 prospects throwing us the “kitchen sink”.

We also were able to do a little defensive work in the gym like usual. Infielders worked on fielding some grounders and turning double plays. Not even close to what it will be like on Saturday playing on a real field, but we’re taking what we can get.

Also due to all the terrible weather, we have had our fair share of tarp duties this past week. This would involve taking the tarp on and off our field, either after practices, or during the day in between classes.

Luckily the past Friday, instead of being on a bus, we were able to hold practice outside. We were not able to get any time on the turf lacrosse field, and absolutely couldn’t practice on the field, so the coaches made a make-shift infield in centerfield of Golden Park. During this practice, we were able to do some long tossing as a team and stretch out our arms while we had the chance. After this, outfielders did some hitting in the outdoor tunnels by our field, while catchers, pitchers, and infielders went through out bunt coverage, and first and third situations. Once we were done with that, outfielders took some flyballs and everyone else did some hitting. It was another very productive outdoor practice for the team.

On Tuesday we were able to have another outdoor practice, this time on the turf lacrosse field. We had a very small timeframe for the practice, but we got a lot done in this short time. We went through an extended infield-outfield pregame session, which is the last time before we do it before our game on Saturday morning. One can only hope the weather continues to be good, so we can have another outside practice before we leave Friday, but I’m surly not putting any money on it. Supposedly we are supposed to get another winter storm here in Keyser this Wednesday, so we may be trapped inside for a while, but who knows anymore.

All of this stuff is leading up to our opening weekend this coming weekend in Sumpter, SC. I know, that I said opening weekend was supposed to be last weekend, but I hope this time Mother Nature doesn’t make me a liar for the second weekend in a row. As of now, we are planning to load the buses Friday morning at 8 AM and depart on the road trip. On Saturday we are scheduled to play Florence Darlington at 10 AM, then come back for a night game at 6:30 PM against Walters State. On Sunday, we play Florence Darlington again at 10 AM, then load the buses up and head back to Keyser. Once again, the team, as well as I, are very eager to start playing. It has been a long time coming, and I feel that by now we are beyond ready and ready to face some of the top teams in the country this weekend. Hopefully by this time next week I will be giving you guys a rundown of the past weekend. Fingers crossed that Mother Nature wants to watch some baseball this weekend in Sumpter, SC, so stay tuned!

For this week’s player diary video, I decided to do a profile on my teammate Justin Stone (we call him chops). Now most college teams have all this nice gear, nice stadiums, or whatever, but I doubt most teams have a TEAM BARBER. Earlier this year, Chops started cutting his own hair to save some money, but it quickly has grown to more. Now, he cuts everyone on the team’s hair, including my own. I have had some bad haircuts in my day (one by our old assistant Andrew Kowalo lol), but chops had me looking crisp. I haven’t really seen him do a bad job yet. He definitely knows what he’s doing, especially for a beginner. But you guys can see for yourself on this week’s player diary video on the Potomac State Baseball YouTube page. CHECK IT OUT!!

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 introduce one of the many beautiful attractions around Keyser, WV the home of Potomac State College.  This week I am going to talk about a very beautiful outlook called the “Fire Tower.” I also created a video showing off the beautiful sights the attraction provides. Check it out!

Back in the day the old outpost was where workers stood watch and paid attention for forest fires in the area so they could notify the fire department and put the fires out.  That was many years ago, and now the unoccupied tower had been fenced in and serves as a place for people to go and take in the beautiful views of the local area.  The area by the fire tower is also the location of many of the area’s cell phone companies, cell towers.  All around the area of the tower, there are anywhere from 10-20 wind turbines built all around the mountaintops.  From our teams’ home at Golden Park, you can always find a bunch of those turbines operating behind our home dugout and clubhouse.  With all the windy days during our spring season, it makes a lot of sense that there are many turbines to create energy from what Coach Little calls “The Jetstream.” Whenever a player hits a homerun on our field on a windy day, he always talks about how the ball hits the jet stream and “fires out of a cannon.”

This last week, the team was hit with some bad news, that our first weekend of games was canceled due to impending rain that was going to hit Louisburg, NC. Even though the team was very disappointed that we no longer could make the trip, it was beneficial for the squad to get some extra practice in to keep preparing for our next opportunity to open the season.  This included another weekend of facing our pitchers at full speed for our live at-bats in the gymnasium.  Those practice took place on Saturday and Sunday so our pitchers could stay consistent with their scheduled times to throw.  This way they could bullpen during this week and stay ready to face batters in a game when we open our season on Saturday the 23^rd against Florence-Darlington Technical College. Yesterday and last Friday we also had the privilege of being able to get in two more outdoor practices leading up to the season.  Friday, we had our first practice on Golden Park for the season.  Due to the current state of the infield, we were not allowed to practice on that part of the field but got in some great work on our 1st & 3^rd defense, bunt defense, and PFPs (Pitchers Fielding Practice) in the outfield where it was much drier. Yesterday we were able to get some time on Stayman Field and practice on the turf field.  We took a ton of ground balls and fly balls.  We also ran through our Infield and Outfield pregame routine (In & Out) one more time before the season.  The team is more excited than ever to begin the season. We can’t wait to be outside all the time practicing and playing games. Like the coaches say, “Each practice in the gym, the walls seem to get closer and closer.”

To continue my “10 Questions With…” segment, this week I decided to do 10 questions with… Brandon Schaeffer!  Brandon is a freshman pitcher and infielder on the team from Auburn, PA where he attended Schuylkill High School.

What is your favorite place for a late-night snack in Keyser?

I got to go with McDonald’s. Nothing can beat it.

If you could trade places with any player on the team for a day, who would you pick?

Austin Chavis

You’re stranded on an island and can only bring three things with you.  What are you bringing?

I would bring a boat and a fishing rod for a way to provide my meals.  I would also bring matches, so I can make some fire.

What is your favorite song on the Golden Park playlist?

Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn

What’s your favorite college baseball experience to date?

After our fall trip to play against Virginia Commonwealth University we ate at a conjoined gas station and Golden Corral for dinner. I had never seen anything like it before.

What player has the best jump shot on the team?

My roommate Dale Houser

What is your favorite fruit and why?

Dragon fruit.  It’s so good it gives you magical powers.

If you could pick any Slurpee flavor to drink whenever, what would it be?

Blue Raspberry

If you could play any sport other than baseball, which would you choose?

I would be a Football player for sure.

What are you most excited about for the season?

I’m most excited for the road trips with the boys.

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!