Welcome to the 2019 Potomac State Baseball Player Diary homepage. This season, Sophomores Andrew Berry (Morgantown High School / Morgantown, W.Va.), 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, yet again, to another Potomac State Baseball player diary for this 2019 season!
So, this past week it seems like the weather here in Keyser is starting to make a turn for the better. Now I love snow cancelations just as much as any college student but getting snow all the way into March was getting pretty old.
To kick of the week, last Monday, April 1, 2019, me and some of the guys decided to go on a little outdoor camping trip to make use of the nice weather. After all our classes were over, sophomores, Andrew Berry, Pete Costigan, Austin Martin, Austin Chavis, Abe Sterns, and I made a road trip to Wapacoma Campground which is in Romney, W.Va., about 30 minutes away from school. At the campground, my parents have a permanent campsite where our camper is parked, so that they can stay there on weekends during the season. But for us, it is like our home away from home. Once we got there, we unloaded the car, and set up camp. Now, the first thing any camp trip needs is a fire and Abe being the outdoors expert he is, got one started right away.
Since it was still daylight, we took a walk down to the river bank on the South Branch of the Potomac River. We figured that we might as well do some fishing, but sadly, we didn’t even get a nibble. Once we got back to the camper, everyone was starving so we rummaged through the camper to find food. Unfortunately, all we could find was some bags of Ramen Noodles and pizza rolls. But we had to make do, so Chef Chavis got some water boiling on the fire and made some noodles (super elite cooking skills I know). While that was going on, Austin Martin made some pizza rolls in the microwave. Then we all had a 5-star, college-student meal around the fire. Through the rest of the trip, we just hung out, throwing football, talking, and enjoying wild and wonderful West Virginia. It was a great trip and a good way to enjoy our off day from baseball. Going to school in a small town leaves you with limited things to do but hanging out with teammates and going camping is what I’m really going to miss after I finish my schooling at Potomac State this year.
Now back to baseball, the team had a pretty good week. To start off the week, we played a home doubleheader series against University of Charleston JV’s last Wednesday. The first game turned into a real shootout. With a total of 31 runs being scored in the game, we edged out a win 16-15. Six players had multiple hits, and Austin Chavis had a clutch three-run home run in the 6th inning to tie the game. It was his third of the season.
In the next game, it wasn’t much of a shootout. We 10-runned Charleston 21-6 in four innings. Our hitters stayed hot, and four pitchers, Nathan Kerr, Devin Dinicola, Garett Hagerty, and Tanner Champ, battled on the mound and helped us get the series sweep.
Fast forward to the weekend, this past Saturday we hosted Shenandoah University for a doubleheader. Brett Whiteman got another win on the mound, pitching four innings with nine K’s. Andrew Liller and Dinicola closed out the game, giving us a 14-8 win. Austin Martin and Hayden Almond led the offense, both with two hits and three RBIs.
Trying to get another series sweep, we were eager to start game 2. Brandon Schaeffer threw a gem in this game, earning himself another complete game shutout for the season. The game was finished off by Pete Costigan, who had a clutch two run bomb in the bottom of the 6th, which were the only runs in the game, getting us a sweep with a 2-0 victory.
College baseball is such a grind and on weekends where there are back-to-back doubleheaders, you can really feel the fatigue. But to be mentally tough, we put all aside for our Sunday doubleheader against Cecil College. In both games, our bats continued to stay hot and pitching stayed lights out, giving us 12-2 and 10-0 wins to finish off the weekend. Freshman Foster Conis made his first colligate start in the second game of the series. And what a debut it was, throwing a complete game shutout with four K’s and two hits allowed through five innings.
Our record is now 22-5 heading into this weekend, including a big game against Harford Community College on Sunday. For more on the game recaps, check out our team page,
http://www.potomacstatesports.com/sports/bsb/index
Also, just wanted to give out shout out to two freshman who are off to a really hot start in their careers. Dale Houser, from Donegal, PA, is currently ranked 3rd in the nation among NCJAA D1 for batting average, hitting an astonishing .509! From a pitching side, we have Brandon Schaeffer, from Auburn, PA, who posts an ERA (earned run average) of 0.79 which is second in the nation among NJCAA D1 pitchers! Knock on wood their success continues.
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 talk about some of the adventures the players and I have gone on the past week.
The team going out and spending time outside of practice is crucial for team bonding. With Potomac State College being a fairly small school, our team becomes our family and that makes us as close knit as possible. Whenever you spend the majority of your time together, you become closer than you could ever imagine.
On Friday night, a group of players traveled up to the Country Club Mall is LaVale, Md., to go to the movies and spend some time together. We watched the new movie by Jordan Peele called Us, and if you haven’t seen it, I would highly recommend it. The concept of the movie and everything will blow your mind and leave you trying to figure out what happened once you leave the theatre. The crew who attended the film included Brandon Schamp, Dylan Dunkley, Jake Ours, Jorge Arrate, Juwuan Weaver, Austin Chavis, Joel Spishock, Abe Stearns, and me. It was a great time for us to spend some time leading up to the weekend’s four-game home slate. It helped all the players relax and have some fun before work needed to be done on Saturday and Sunday. LaVale is a short fifteen-minute drive from Keyser and is a hot commodity for us players. It is home to a mall, movie theatre, B-dubs, and a Chick-fil-a, so if there is any place you miss from home, LaVale has it.
Over the weekend, we were able to have a very successful weekend going 4-0 over some very solid Shenandoah University and Cecil College programs which Joel has already covered. Our team has really come together great through the season and even though we always aren’t the more talented team we are always going to be competitive in a game and have the chance to win due to our hard work and effort. It will be fun seeing what we can accomplish through the remainder of our season.
In our program, our typical off-day from practice every week is on Monday. This means that we do not have any practice obligations. It is always nice to have a day off to rest our bodies from the weekend to prepare for the next week. Along with that, it makes Monday the best day to go on trips such as a visit to a college. For us sophomores, it is the prime part of the season to talk to schools and start figuring out what our next path is for the next two following seasons. This past Monday, Joel Spishock, Pete Costigan and I all went on visits to four-year universities. Joel visited Slippery Rock University, while Pete and I, both, traveled down to Charleston, W.Va. where he visited the University of Charleston and I visited West Virginia State University. My teammate, Pete, happily found his home for the next two years on his visit and committed to the University of Charleston! Congratulations to him on his awesome achievement!!
Finally, the last big adventure of the week occurred on Tuesday. Coach Little gave us great news on Monday evening that Tuesday would also be an off-day this week. To take advantage of our off-day, a group of players decided to make the trip to Baltimore, Md. following our classes to attend a Baltimore Orioles game at the beautiful Camden Yards. Here is a video covering our night at the ballpark!
Austin Chavis, Trent Robison, Abe Stearns, Cole Miller, and I traveled in a group together. Tyler Bradford, Pete Costigan, Devin Dinicola, Dylan Dunkley, Jake Ours, and Austin Martin traveled in other cars to the game. Once we all arrived, we met up and watched a bigtime offensive showing by the A’s. The final score was 12-3 and the game was much closer than the score dictated! All around it was a fun night!
Now, to continue my "10 Questions With…" segment, this week I decided to do 10 questions with… Tyler Bradford. Tyler is a freshman, left-handed pitcher. He is from Beverly, Ohio, where he attended Fort Frye High School.
What is your favorite part about Keyser?
The rides up the mountain and going to see all the pretty views
What player on the team is most likely to become a coach?
Pete Costigan
What is your favorite Coach Little quote?
“Sprint!! Get in here let’s go!!”
What is your dream car?
Aston Martin DB 9
What is your favorite vegetable?
I’m not a huge fan of vegetables so I am going to have to go with none of the above
Would you rather have super strength or be able to fly?
Ability to fly would be a lot cooler in my opinion
Rawlings or Wilson?
Rawlings
What is your favorite meal in the cafeteria?
I’m a huge fan of the Patty Melts
Which Potomac State Baseball uniform is your favorite?
Navy Jersey and pinstripe pants. They are slick.
What are you most excited about for the rest of the season?
Working hard towards achieving our goal to get to Grand Junction
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 through 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!