Augustana Baseball in Hawaii Blog

Day ?? in Hawaii, Feb. 4-5, 2023

Well, we’re back in the Denver airport. For the lucky half of the team, it’s only a four hour layover. For me and the other half, it’s a seven hour layover. 

If you’ve been keeping up with these, obviously, you know that this trip did not go the way that we planned it. However, if you’re only going to win one game, at least it’s best to make it the last game. It makes this travel day a lot better. 

We got some huge performances on the mound from a combination of Caleb Kranz, Tom Sun, Jason Fink and Adam Diedrich. For Tom and Jason, it was their first collegiate appearance, but it didn’t show on the mound. They both came in and got us out of some tough spots. We were able to keep the hitters guessing all day and it made a huge difference in their ability to get the ball in play. The last couple of days it’s felt like they knew what was coming or something. 

At the plate, the bats showed up in a big way. Tate Meiners and Trevor Winterstein both got three hits, Drey Dirksen hit a ball like 120 mph over the left field fence, and we had good approaches all day (Huber very much emphasizes this). 

It’s a good way to finish off a bad trip is how I would put it. We have a lot of new people on the team and they are finally able to put a win under the belt. 

This trip won’t define us as a team on the field, but it will 100 percent mold us into a better team this year. We don’t have any doubts about our talent, we just needed to get our feet wet and see what a college game looks like for the 20 youngins on the team. 

Now we will held back home and presumably practice a lot of baserunning and team defense. 

To the people who took the time to read this every day, thank you so much. One of the only things keeping me typing was hearing multiple times from people about how they have family or friends who are enjoying the blogs. So, to you, mahalo (don’t even need Ornelles for that one).

Also, to my parents, and all the other parents who made the trip out to Hawaii, thank you for everything you do. I’m sure I can speak for everyone when we say we appreciate it immensely. 

As Ethan Cole would say, for the final time (editor's note, at least until next time), this was Seth Miller on the keys. 

Day Five in Hawaii, Feb. 3, 2023

I’m not going to lie; these are not enjoyable to write at a time like this. 

I don’t know if someone stole some ancient tiki or something, but nothing is going our way on the field. It’s frustrating and I can’t keep resorting to saying it’s okay because we are in Hawaii. 

So, I’m not gonna write this one. I’m handing out my laptop to some freshman who have played their first couple of collegiate games and they are going to type their thoughts on how it feels to be playing. 

This is Ragan Pinnow typing. We have had a rough start as a team. College baseball is a little different from high school. The game is a lot faster, the pitchers get better, and the game as a whole just gets a lot harder. When facing adversity, it helps to take a deep breath. This deep breath slows things down and helps clear the mind to move on to the next thing.

“Good job, Ragan” -Seth 

Hey guys, Ashton Michek here. Like Ragan said, not the start we were hoping for. I realized today that college hitters are a lot better than small town high school batters, and that if I don't execute pitches they get hit. But like my good friend Seth said, there's only one way to go from here, up. But besides all the negatives, it was definitely a cool first experience.

“Good job Ashton” -Seth

Ethan Cole on the keys, today was a memory that will be with me for the rest of my life. It all started when I was sitting in the grass waiting to be told to warm up. All of a sudden I saw Coach Huber walk out to the mound and point toward me. I can’t even put into words the feeling of numbness I had to go through my body as Coach Huber gave signs for the bunt play later that inning. I executed it to perfection, only to throw the next ball into the dirt and make it all for nothing. Nevertheless, it was a cool first experience and we will bounce back. 

“Good job, Ethan” -Seth

What’s up everyone, Ryan Clementi here. Going along with what the others have said, this is definitely not the result we had hoped for coming down here to Hawaii. The good thing is, I was able to get my first college appearance on the mound under my belt and it was really cool, to say the least. When coach Clay Collison gave me the nod to go in, I was terrified to be completely honest. I absolutely drilled the first batter I faced with a fastball after getting him to an 0-2 count. I had to figure out how to get over my nerves a little bit, and I ended up getting the next guy to ground into a double play, and the last guy to ground out. I’m glad I was able to get over my first game jitters, and the best is yet to come. 

“Good job, Ryan” -Seth

Welp, there you have it. Here’s to hoping tomorrow's blog is a little more bright. 

Day Four in Hawaii, Feb. 2, 2023

Well, not much more that I can say that wasn’t already said yesterday in terms of the game. 

Positive Vibes Only.

I’m still in Hawaii, I’m still playing the game I love, I’m still surrounded by people I love. 

I got to go eat with my parents this morning at Ken’s Pancake House, another highly recommended place to eat from our local Hawaiian, Jacob Ornelles.

After we ate I went back to my parents hotel room where I got to sit on the balcony for a little bit and watch Ornelles, X Feng and Brody Von Berge paddle-board along the coast and try to catch some fish. I got to see Drey Dirksen and his family sitting outside the resort talking and hanging out. I got to see Jayson Bertsch and his family sitting in the pool together laughing and talking (not stalking, it’s called people-watching now). A lot of people on our team are fortunate enough to have their family here to watch and support them, it’s really cool to see. 

I walked back to the hotel after hanging out in my parents room for a little bit and they went to the Volcano National Park. A bunch of the guys ordered Panda Express for lunch. Thanks to Ethan Cole backing out of the order after telling the guys he would eat with them, I was fortunate enough to get a heavy dose of Orange Chicken. Tom Sun, who was born and raised in Beijing, informed me that fortune cookies are actually not a part of Chinese culture and were created in America. Not gonna lie, feel kind of dumb not knowing that. I’m still going to eat them and believe whatever the cookie paper tells me though. 

At the end of the day, we aren’t playing the best baseball, but at least we are playing. So I’m going to stay happy. 

Day Four in Hawaii, Feb. 1, 2023

Well, there are many reasons that Journalists aren’t supposed to have a conflict of interest with the teams they write about. This is one of those situations. 

It’s hard to write about the day we had after losing a game, but in my career here, we’ve lost the first game of the season four out of five times. We’ve done pretty well for ourselves in those five seasons I’d say. 

To the fun stuff.

We started our morning by jumping in a couple of vans and heading just west of town. Located on the Wailuku River are multiple waterfall spots. One of them is Waiale Falls, an 85-foot waterfall dropping down into a sphere with lush rock formations, ivy, and most importantly, a deep pool of water for jumping into. 

There were a couple of spots to jump from, but thanks to a local, we were able to find a trail that took a brave few to the very top of the waterfall. I am not one to say I’m scared of heights or anything, but there is no chance in any universe that I would have jumped from where a few of the guys jumped from today. 

Huge congratulations to J.D Hennen, Clayton Thompson, Andrew Ball, Brody Von Berge, Ashton Michek and Coach Beers. You guys are brave, big ups to you. 

Meanwhile, I belly-flopped from like 8 feet up and just about took out my kidney. 

We left the falls around 11 and went to find a spot to eat lunch. Highly recommended by Jacob Ornelles was Cafe 100, a nice little drive-up spot with a local cuisine called the Loco Moco. A cuisine that consists of rice, topped with hamburger, a fried egg and gravy. 

I ordered a chicken sandwich and fries. It was really good. After lunch, we drove back to the hotel to rest up before heading to the game. 

I’m not going to talk about the game, don’t care, you can read the recap here. 

Positive Vibes Only. 

Hopefully, tomorrow's game goes better and I can give you guys a little recap of it from the team’s perspective. Until then, Skol Vikes. 

Day Three in Hawaii, Jan. 31, 2023

Aloha again, tomorrow is the first day of our season, and the beginning to my fifth and final season as an Augustana Viking.

We drove from the west coast through the two peaks of the island to the east coast. It was genuinely the coolest scenery I’ve driven through in my life; the pictures don’t do justice in any way. Adam Diedrich put it best by saying “this is what I imagine Montana would look like”. 

As we drove through the hills of lava rock formations, we got to see some amazing landscape, but also got to see herds of goat, sheep and cow. Every few miles there were signs that read “wild animal crossing” (shoutout Mrs. Brown) because instead of being trapped in, they just get to be one with the land. We almost took out a baby goat at one point but thankfully it jumped back into the grass. 

During the drive, it really hit me that this season will be the last time I get to do stuff like this with all of my best friends. Thanks to a worldwide pandemic and Tommy John Surgery, it feels like forever since I went on my first road trip down to Arkadelphia, Arkansas, got the start at DH in game one, struck out swinging at two sliders out of the zone in my first at-bat and got benched for 16 innings to then pitch the last inning of the double-header. 

I have so much mahalo (Hawaiian term for gratitude according to Jacob Ornelles) for everything that I’ve been able to do and everyone that I’ve been able to meet in these four years, and I’m excited to start a fifth journey tomorrow.

Ok, sorry about that, back to what we did today. 

My van got to Francis Wong Stadium only 15 minutes past the start of our practice time. Because of the rain, we weren’t able to go on the infield dirt, which meant no batting practice on the field, a true blessing for pitchers. 

We got our work in on defense, pitchers got their throwing in and we got out of there to head to our hotel. Our new hotel brought us a new pool to break in, even Coach Huber couldn’t resist taking a dip after the long drive and practice. 

Tonight, we were treated to an amazing dinner thanks to the generosity of the Davis family. We were able to all get together at nice venue and enjoy some food with all of the families who were able to make the trip. Parents were able to meet each other and with the hundreds of new people joining our team this year it was a great way to put names to faces. 

Also, the sunset was so cool, the purple and orange sky bled down to the mountain where it disappeared beneath the peak. We all got to head out to the rocks and take some pictures for the gram (Instagram).

Well, tomorrow’s the big day. I’m currently sitting on the hotel balcony, eating an ice cream sandwich while the guys find out what room to play video games in to end the night. I can literally hear Clayton Thompson’s voice echoing throughout the corridors of our hotel as I type

It still feels weird, but everything we’ve done since August has put us in shape to go win. Here’s to hoping tomorrow’s blog is a happy one. Skol Vikes.

Day Two in Hawaii, Jan. 30, 2023

Aloha again. Somehow, I didn’t scare you off yesterday, so that’s good. 

Today, I got to witness something I’ve never seen before, a chicken crossing a road. I also got to wake up to a “Cocka-doodle-doo” for the first time in my life. These two things, combined with the great taste of a Rainbow Sherbet Reign, meant the start to day 2 was winnahz (this apparently is something cool in pigeon English according to our friendly neighborhood Hawaiian, Jacob Ornelles).

We loaded up our vans at 7:30 and headed to the local slow-pitch softball field for practice and a scrimmage. With the heat and humidity, it feels like I’m constantly in line for the log chute ride at the Mall of America. 

Our practice started off great with only one of the vans getting lost on the five-minute drive to the field, we warmed up and hit batting practice before an unfortunate group of four of us had to retrieve a portable mound for the scrimmage.

What seemed like a simple task turned into what will be my workout for the entire trip (Coach Huber if you’re reading this I’m totally kidding). 

The mound that we needed was 300 pounds, and was located just under a mile away from our field on the opposite side of the complex. The other issue with the mound, it was ginormous. We looked like the little kids trying to fit the square block in the circle hole while trying to fit the mound into the van. After giving up hope that we would have vehicular help, myself, Ryan Jares, Aidan Torpey and Aaron Heger embarked on our grueling journey. 

Thank the lord for the dolly that the complex had, otherwise we would have had to carry it the whole way. During our journey, we blocked traffic, turned heads and made a couple friends along the way. After we scrimmaged, five souls had to make the same journey back. 

All of this before 12:30.

So, for the rest of the day we were on our own, which means a lot of us got to spend the day walking along the coast, swimming at the beach, eating food and shopping. 

For lunch, a group of us spent an hour eating at Kona Canoe Club, watching the waves crash into the wall and being greeted by the local cats Gary and Goob. After lunch, we walked along the shore and found a nice beach that was surrounded by ancient historic sites. 

Words can’t do justice to how nice the coast looked, so hopefully the actual pictures I took can do that for me. 

After a couple of hours in the hotel pool, everyone split back up for dinner and settled into our rooms. 

 Looking ahead, we get to take our talents to the east side of the island tomorrow and find our new homes for the next five days. Tomorrow is the last day before we get to play baseball. I just got passed the gaming controller, signing off for the night.

Travel Day, Jan. 29, 2023

Well… I’m not really sure what happened to December and January, but we’re now a few days away from our first game of the season. It’s tough to make someone mad when they know that they’ll be watching the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii later in the day, but our airline got us pretty darn close. 

We started our check-in process at about 3:45 in the morning and it took no more than five minutes before everything went to shambles. Somehow, in the scrum of people trying to get their bags checked, I got my boarding pass right away and heely’d my way to the gate. We then sat on the tarmac for about an hour before we actually moved, but hey, sunset, Hawaii, warm weather, soon. 

I’m not sure what my seatmate, Gabe Pilla, was dreaming about on the plane but whoever he was fighting he had to have knocked out. I got woken up about 5 times in 90 minutes to an elbow to the side or him lifting my whole arm up or his full body twitching. 

After a four-hour layover in the Denver airport, we were back in the air for an 8-hour trip over the Pacific. Complimentary headphones gave me the opportunity to take in some true cinema, the Scooby-Doo live action movies. 

Finally, after about 20 hours, we landed, departed straight onto the runway and walked through the most tropical baggage claim I’ve ever seen before taking turns changing into practice gear in the two stalls of the men’s bathroom. 

After loading our four vans to the brim, we headed to the community park for about an hour and a half long practice. 

I’ve now been awake for 24 straight hours, I’m thankfully sitting in my hotel bed, covered by my sheets, awaiting the pizza that’s going to put me to sleep and end my first night in a foreign land. 

Tomorrow we get an opportunity to explore the island after a morning practice, so hopefully I will have some great experiences to share. 

Ahuihou,(our friendly hawaiian Jacob Ornelles told me to say this, it means goodbye)