AIKEN, S.C. --- Throughout the 2009 NCAA Southeast Baseball, Tusculum senior outfielder C.J. Hillyer will be providing a daily blog of his experiences at the tournament.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Day two at the NCAA Regional. Today was a slow start for both myself and our starting pitcher/my roommate Max Keleher. It was after 11 a.m. before either of us really made a move to get out of bed and get our day started. We had Subway for lunch at the hotel at 11:30 a.m. and departed for the ballpark around 1:15 p.m. We arrived at 1:30 p.m. and were able to see Catawba beat Georgia College while we were getting ready for our game. Our game against Francis Marion started right at 3 p.m. and from the beginning it was evident we were in a pitchers' duel. Max gave us several great innings before giving up a tough three runs in the fourth. He had only given up two hits to that point and was doing a great job. He was just the victim of some bad luck. He surrendered the ball to Michael Franklin in the fifth inning. Franklin allowed two inherited runners to score, but shut the door from that point on in the game. Franklin did an excellent job of keeping us in the game and allowing us the chance to make a move. Unfortunately Francis Marion's starter threw a two-hit shut out and really kept our hitters off balance. We just returned to the hotel after seeing Belmont Abbey defeat host USC Aiken. We play Aiken in an elimination game in the morning and hope to continue our season for at least another day.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Today our team left Pioneer Park at 8:30 a.m. ready to head out and compete for
a regional championship in Aiken, S.C. Before we left our athletic director Frankie DeBusk came aboard the bus to wish us good luck and we were on our way. Our trip took about 5 hours to reach our hotel with a stop at Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I slept most of the way down here and it seemed to me that the trip just flew by. Once we arrived at the hotel we were given our room assignments and given an hour or so before we had to depart for our practice. We had practice from 4-5 p.m. and arrived at USC Aiken's field about 3:30 p.m. to stretch and prepare to take the field as soon as fellow SAC competitor Catawba was finished with their practice. At practice I had to throw a bullpen in preparation for my start on Friday and did some conditioning then I was finished to fully prepare. Our team practice was basically getting use to the field and our position players took some fly/ground balls and took some batting practice. USC Aiken has a great facility and it should be a great pleasure to play some great teams over the course of the weekend at a beautiful venue. Just before departing for dinner at Golden Corral my parents, sister and brother-in-law all arrived at the hotel. It is great having them here and this is the first time in several years I will have my whole family here to enjoy the weekend and spend some time together.