Mr Davis has grown some over the years as the Buffaloes Head Coach was once a batboy for the Staunton Braves of the Valley Baseball ⚾️ League. Naturally, it was our Skipper, Lawrence Nesselrodt who was at the helm of the Braves back then.

The beauty of having a long time relationship with Lawrence ” Big Picture ” Nesselrodt is the people who we cross paths with every time we are at a ballpark together.

Today we will be hearing 👂 those two great words – Play Ball for the first time this season. We are down here for Friday and Saturday with the hopes of getting our first four games ( out of 49) played.

We open up with the home team here at 11:00 am and then after a short break we will square off with Indiana Wesleyan University. The goal each season is to capture the first piece of action 🎬 and being we are the visitors that will be Hunter Fansler at the plate 🍽

The trademark ( ™️) for me at our Home games is time and temperature 🌡, something I borrow from days of old at Yankee Stadium 🏟. A quick check tells me its 52° now and in just a moment I can add the time of the first pitch !

It’s game time and when the wind isn’t blowing its downright tolerable here.

Braedan Pakkala just pitched his way out of a bases loaded, no out jam with only 1 run allowed. Top of the 3rd now with Milligan leading 1-0.

12:05 – Indiana Wesleyan University has arrived at the field ahead of their opening game at 2pm.

#35 – Dakota Aspinwall heads out to the mound for us in the bottom of the fourth inning. With two games on the schedule today both games will be 7 inning contests.

Cool Title and one I take a great deal of Pride in but trust me when I say that a number of things fall under the Umbrella 🌂at this level.

12:14 – Top of the 5th now and we trail 3-0 without having given up a hard hit ball. Early season says the Pitchers are ahead of the hitters and that is the case today.

So I changed my position at the Park in hopes of changing our luck a bit. Standing 🧍‍♂️ just behind the outfield fence in left and a Home Run fell at my feet. Lucked changed but in the other direction as Milligan plated a fourth run on a solo shot. The positive side of it was I picked it up and returned it to Coach Davis.

12:45 – Bottom of the 6th inning now, meaning our Golden Bears 🐻 will have one more turn at the plate.

The question for game two today will be which team has the advantage ? The team that has 7 innings under their belt or the team with fresh legs ?

Dakota has retired the first two batters to start the inning and looks to complete the 3 up, 3 down before allowing a walk.

The inning got away from us as the Buffaloes had a two out rally that pushed the lead to 7-0. Bang – Bang play at second base would have kept it at 4-0 but it wasn’t meant to be.

12:57 – Will Gray leads off our last stand as we look to build on our two hit total. Both hits came in the top of the fifth inning but Cody Cooper was stranded at third base.

1:00 – Final out in 7-0 setback.

What happens next is a typical double header day as the team has water, Sports drinks and healthy snacks for the between game break.

Pick things back up after 2pm…

2:15 – Scoreless in the Top of 2nd

2:38 – Tied at 1-1, Top 3rd as Noah Lukas scores our first run !

3:00 – Down 4-2, Top of 4th

3:30 – Down 4-2, Top of 5th, hanging tough…

Hunter Fansler hits our first Long Ball of the season for the second run…

3:50 – Big moment as IWU has the bases loaded with two outs, we need to keep it close. Fingers crossed 🤞… Got the out !

4:00 – We have two on with two out now, needing a clutch hit… not this time…Off to the final inning…

Sadly, Day 1 ends with a rough top of the 7th as five runs cross the plate, making the final score a slightly misleading 9-2 for our Golden Bears 🐻.

  The good news is that we get to try it again in just 18+ hours. Off to the team Hotel 🏨 and a meal.

As always, its a Great Day to be a Golden Bear 🐻!!

Lawrence Nesselrodt and I go back 17 years now and its time to start our latest N.A.I.A baseball ⚾️ season. This Friday and Saturday we will be down in Tennessee in hopes of getting four games played, including one against the #5 team in the Country.

  This information will most likely only be relevant to folks here in that it means that I will be spending a significant amount of time up at Linda K Epling Stadium 🏟 in Beckley, West Virginia over the next three months.

NAIA Baseball ⚾️ is a unique animal and there’s someone here that is rather familiar with the ins and outs, it would be our Athletic Director Kevin DeHaven.

DeHaven played his College baseball at the NAIA level after graduating from Carroll County High School 🏫.

The first thing that jumps out is that the schedule runs from early February until the end of April, not quite Springtime and certainly not Summer.

Normally we don’t try to host a game until the end of February or early March because of the fact we are located in the mountains of West Virginia. This year we are slated to play at home 🏡 next weekend (four games) with a heavy dose of weather permitting attached to that series.

  Johnson City, Tennessee will be plenty warm this weekend but Saturday will be a rainy day. Should be fun either way as once again we lace them up for the season opener for the 17th time together.

11:00 am – First Pitch on Friday, odd as it sounds to say on February 5th, we will try to play baseball ⚾️ here in just two days!