High Noon is the estimated time for today’s First Pitch between West Virginia Tech University and Indiana University, Purdue University @ Columbus (IUPUC). WVU-T captured the opening game Friday by a score of 10-4 and now need to win one more to advance to the River States Conference tournament next week in Chillicothe, Ohio.
Waking up to all of the Prom photos 📷 from last night on The Hill put me in a reflective mood for sure. Prom in many ways signals that the end is near, not the end of the story but the end of one chapter of the story.
The thought train 🚆 started rolling down the tracks quickly and brought me to realize that here in a few hours I will be calling Golden Bears 🐻 Baseball ⚾️ for the final time today. If we win one of the two games then the team moves on the final eight up in Ohio next week and if they were to drop both games then their season would reached the end. Either way, the chapter closes at the end of the day today and what a chapter it has been!
Sixteen seasons ago Lawrence Nesselrodt accepted the Head Coaching job at WVU-T, which at the time was located in Montgomery, West Virginia. I still remember the day of the very first home game when I drove to Montgomery to support the man 👨 I tagged as “Big Picture” Nesselrodt. Making the drive 🚗 from Luray, Virginia, I pulled into the campus only to find out that there was no baseball field there and the games were played at East Bank Middle School.
So the journey began at East Bank Middle School 🏫 and today it ends at Linda K Epling Stadium 🏟 in Beckley, West Virginia. There has been home games played in a number of home parks and stadiums along the way, heck, the University itself moved during this stretch.
What started in Montgomery is now located in Beckley and if you have never been to Montgomery it would be difficult to truly appreciate just what the transition was from one to the other.
The program has also changed Conferences along the way before landing in RSC a few years back. The league itself has expanded to a record high 12 teams this season which in turn created the format that has us playing the games this weekend.
In years past, the Top Six teams advanced to Chillicothe but this year the decision was made to hold play-in weekend series across the league. The irony of this is that the Golden Bears 🐻 would have advanced to the tournament in Chillicothe this season after finishing up in the #6 spot in the league. But with the new format, the team had to requalify for the event through a weekend series.
The world 🌎 of N .A .I .A Baseball ⚾️ is a very unique place and books 📚 could be written on the subject and probably should be one day. But for the teams in the RSC, Chillicothe is the Promise Land. The Golden Bears 🐻 have made it up there one time and actually advanced to the Championship game before losing in the ninth inning. The next step 🚶♂️ from Chillicothe is the NAIA World Series and as the old joke about the Lottery goes – you can’t Win if you don’t play. One cannot dream about the World Series without first getting a ticket to Chillicothe !
Hopefully that ticket 🎟 gets punched here in a few hours, whether it be in Game 2 (Noon) or Game 3 (if necessary) at 3:30 pm.
16 years is a decent amount of time in one’s life and its been quite the ride with Lawrence “Big Picture ” Nesselrodt and for the past few years, Legendary Joe Goddard !
It’s time to get ready to head over to the Stadium 🏟 and see just how many Golden Bears 🐻 can find their way to 🏡 🍽….
A.S.P.N on The Hill 