Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Lee Weld Blog: Conference Play Begins
April 11, 2011
Southern Illinois sophomore pitcher Lee Weld is keeping a blog throughout the entire 2011 season. Weld, who is going to miss the entire year because of a shoulder injury, will talk about his rehab and what is going on with the Saluki baseball program in his blog. Here is his seventh entry of the season...
Hello Saluki Baseball fans,
It's been an exciting weekend of baseball for your Salukis and the week ahead should be a good one as well. I'm here to give you an inside look at what it was like to be in the dugout for our sweep of Evansville.
As we opened up conference play last weekend, there was the excitement of the "new season" that is the conference season. The intensity of games increases tenfold and there's a greater atmosphere than non-conference games.
Heading into this series, we weren't expected to compete very well since we were voted so low in the preseason polls, but that's exactly what they are, preseason. I think it helps us with the fact that we were voted so low because we play with a chip on our shoulders.
The atmosphere in the dugout was exactly that when we opened the series on Friday. Everyone was excited and ready to go from the beginning. Cameron Maldonado gave us a great start and our hitters came up in the clutch.
Winning that game gave us even more confidence heading into Saturday's game, which helped our dugout even more. I can honestly say that there was no time that we ever felt down, even if we had some miscues.
Everyone expects to win when Cody Forsythe is on the mound, so our approach to the game is a little more relaxed, but we still have the killer instinct.
The hitters came out right away and gave us a great start, which made Cody's job a little bit easier. Tyler Dray has emerged as a solid closer for us, which is a plus when we get deeper into conference.
On Sunday, I felt like the dugout was alive since we all knew the possibility of a sweep and first place in the Valley was on the line. After Blake Pinnon's huge hit, the intensity picked up in the dugout and we found a way to sweep Evansville.
It was a great building weekend for us to get off on the right foot and continue to stay on a little roll. This week will be important with games against SEMO and Illinois to stay on our streak.
I'm excited to get to the weekend to play against Missouri State as well because they knocked us out of the Valley tournament last year.
Glad to see a lot of Saluki fans this weekend, hope it continues and we keep gaining more.
Thanks for reading. Go Dawgs!
Lee Weld #29