It's One Ornery Little Bird

1st W and ACC

2009-02-16T09:06:00.001-08:00

The Petrels blasted their way to the first win of the 2009 season in game two of the doubleheader against Maryville. The high octane offense pounded out 17 hits en route to a 11-0 win and Sam Briend went 6 innings of shuout baseball allowing just 3 hits and striking out 7.

We squandered a chance to sweep at Maryville dropping game one 9-8 after leading 8-2 in the sixth. But the team showed a lot of character in game 2. It says a lot about a team being able to rebound the way they did, impressive. But we must also learn from the first game, we must put away teams when we have the chance, that game will help us down the road. Overall it was a very positive weekend. 30 hits, 9-10 stolen bases, 1 error and 2 solid starting pitching efforts.

Home opener is Tuesday. Atlanta Christian College comes to Anderson Field for a doubleheader starting at 4pm. See you there!

Head to Murvul...

2009-02-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

The Birds are off to Maryville, TN for a doubleheader against the Scots. Note: It is pronounced Murvul by the locals. The Petrels have not beaten the Scots in Maryville since 2005. Always a tough place to play we are ready the challenge. Daniel Sarisky and Sam Briend will toe the rubber in the two seven inning contests.

See you in Tennessee!

LaGrange 10 OU 5

2009-02-11T08:32:00.001-08:00

The Petrels suffered a 10-5 loss at LaGrange to open the 2009 campaign. There were positives and negatives but in the end there were a few mistakes we just couldn't overcome. I know we are disappointed in the outcome but I think the approach to the game and attitudes were right where they need to be. We've all heard it before baseball is a marathon not a sprint, we learn and move forward.

Box Score

Maryville is up next!

No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference. ~Tommy Lasorda

Go Birds!

Opening Day

2009-02-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest."
-Alexander Pope

Opening Day 2009 has arrived and the Petrels are off to LaGrange, GA! Sunny and warm it looks like a good day to play some baseball. The team is looking forward to the challenges and excitement of another season as we make our way through the tough SCAC, Georgia rivals and welcome some new faces to the schedule.

I'm not sure if LaGrange will be doing LIVE stats, but OU will only cover home contests in 2009 unless otherwise noted. Check in at http://www.lagrange.edu/athletics/baseball/index.html to see if there are any updates.

Go Petrels!

2009-02-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays

2008-12-23T19:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays to everyone and have a great New Year! Safe travels and good wishes for a very healthy and wealthy 2009. It is the year of the Petrel!

I'll also say congratulations to the guys for a FANTASTIC fall semester in the classroom! Special shout out goes to Casey Kuebler who put up a 4.00, his second in three semesters! Also, nearly half of the team was over the 3.0 mark. Well done, keep it up.

Stormy Petrel baseball is right around the corner!

Check Back Soon for Updates

2008-12-02T12:23:00.001-08:00

News, Notes and Updates

2008-05-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Another season of Oglethorpe Baseball is in the books. There has been a lot happening since my last post:

Congrats to Sam Briend for making the 1st Team ALL-SCAC Team. Sam was one of seven pitchers selected. For the season he was 6-3 with 1 save and fanned 51 batters in 60 innings.
In case you missed it Nick Greenfield moved into 2nd place All-time in OU history in innings pitched. Nick has been a steady force on our pitching staff for the last four years. He also holds the school record for most strikeouts in a career.
JJ Rizzo was nominated for a Gold Glove but fell a few votes short. Personally, I think he got robbed!
Thanks again goes out to John and Sara Pilger who did a FANTASTIC job leading the parents committee. They poured so much into the program this season. Their efforts were not forgotten! Thank You.
The 2008 Highlight Video is currently in the production stages despite frustrating computer problems. I'm hoping to have it finished in a few weeks. Stay Tuned!

Recruiting continues on as we are still waiting to hear word from a few more guys. Each current player has a throwing and running program for the summer. Each player knows exactly what they need to work and they need to commit themselves to getting better over the next few months.

Enjoy your summer and Go Petrels!!

Millington

2008-04-16T19:44:00.001-07:00

Your Birds are off to Millington, TN to play in the SCAC Divisional Playoff against Trinity. First game is Friday at 5pm (CT).

Here is the link to the tournament web page. LIVe Video and LIVE Stats will be available throughout the weekend.

http://www.scac-online.org/baseball_divisional08/index.html

Saturday

2008-04-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

Gametime is now 2pm!!!

For Immediate Release

2008-04-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

Diamond Petrels Land Highly Touted Recruit

ATLANTA – Oglethorpe University head baseball coach Dan Giordano announced on Thursday that standout catcher/1st baseman Adam Brazenas has committed to Oglethorpe and will spend his next four years playing baseball for the Stormy Petrels. Brazenas was one of 200 perspective students to take part in the annual JEO Scholarship Competition in which he earned a Presidential Scholarships for outstanding academic achievement.

Adam has helped the East Paulding Raiders reach the state playoffs in each of his first three seasons playing for head coach Tony Boyd. As a sophomore Adam hit .460 with 2 HR and 24 RBI’s as the starting catcher. Then in 2007 he hit .390 with 6 HR’s and 36 RBI’s. He is an Under Armour/Team One Pre-Season All American for 2007 and 2008. First Team preseason all state AAAA in 2008. He was First Team All Region 5-AAAA in 2007. In 2007 was named by the Georgia Dugout Club as a Georgia Top 100 Recruit.

His accomplishments do not stop on the diamond as he has been a standout in the classroom as well. He boasts a 3.7 GPA and ranks 25th out of 500 graduating seniors from East Paulding High School in Dallas, Ga.

Said coach Giordano, "We are very excited to have Adam join the program and the OU Community. He offers so much to this University on and off the field. His commitment continues an upward trend for the baseball program and what we are trying to accomplish in building a consistent winner.”

###

Located in Atlanta and founded in 1835, Oglethorpe enrolls over 1,000 students representing 34 states and 36 countries. The university plays in the NCAA Division III Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. The Princeton Review’s The Best 361 Colleges 2007 edition ranks Oglethorpe in its prestigious list and also names it a Best Southeastern College. Oglethorpe University is Georgia’s only coeducational member of the Annapolis Group, an organization of America’s most selective liberal arts institutions.

Final Stretch Run

2008-04-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend will close out the 2008 SCAC regular season schedule as Birmingham Southern comes to town. Currently we are 5-7 in the East and our Magic number is 2 to qualify for the postseason. We could not take care of business at Centre but getting the last game salvaged the weekend. We lost two close games on Saturday where are #2,3,4 and 5 hitters combined to go 0-26. Those guys have been carrying us on offense and there is no doubt they will get hot again this week and into the SCAC Tournament. On Sunday we ran into a buzz saw in game one and were shutout, but we responded with 15 runs in game two for the victory. Hopefully we get to return to Danville, KY for a chance at the SCAC Crown....

But first thing is first....Emory comes calling Wednesday Night at 7pm....its just about time we hand those guys another loss...

LIVE Stats at Centre

2008-04-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

We are unable to get the Live stats working due to not having power anywhere close to the dugout.

Sorry Petrel Fans!!

Live from KY..UPDATE!!

2008-04-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

We will be attempting LIVE stats from Centre all weekend....that is if it ever stops raining.

Friday's 7pm game has been postponed..

We will play a Doubleheader on

Saturday 1pm (7,9)

Sunday 12pm (7,9)

Live Stats at Emory

2008-03-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

Emory will handle the Live stats for Tuesday's game, the link is below.

http://www.go.emory.edu/LiveStats/Base/xlive.htm

Two Games Added

2008-03-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

We have added two games to the schedule both at Oglethorpe.

Monday April 21st vs. Toccoa Falls College 4pm (DH)

The Birds Upset #5 Piedmont 9-8

2008-03-27T05:12:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night the Sea Birds traveled to Demorest, Ga to take on the Piedmont Lions. Piedmont just two days before were ranked the #5 D3 Team in the Nation by The Collegiate News. But your Petrels came out smokin' hot with the sticks and took it to the Lions. OU took a 2-0 lead in the 2nd and would never look back. Andy Farrey lead the offense going 4-5 with 1 R and 1 RBI. Brendan Pilger had another great day with 2 hits in 6 at-bats but scored 3 times, knocked in 2 runs, stole a base and hit a long triple deep to center field. Andrew Lofholm was 3 for 4 with 2 runs and an RBI. The Petrels were able to out hit Piedmont 17-7!

Senior Nick Greenfield took the ball and went 8+ innings of in your face baseball shutting down a hot Piedmont offense. He carried a no-hitter into the 5th before giving up a single and picked up the W. He finshed the night giving up 6 hits and striking out 2.

Come out and see the Sea Birds Thursday as they host SCAC rival #26 DePauw at 5pm in a non-conference game. Be sure to show up early as we will be honoring the Final Four Women's BB team before the game!

Easter Weekend brings Three Wins!!

2008-03-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

With beautiful weather, a green field, and families in the stands the home standing Petrels delighted the crowd with three victories over SCAC rival Sewanee. In a text message sent out early on Thursday I told an old college teammate that "I wanted an offensive explosion this weekend.." Ask and I guess you shall receive.

Friday the Birds lit up the scoreboard (not really since its broken) with 20 runs on 17 hits! Three times as many runs as we have scored in a single game all season. The offense was paced by Chris Lucas (3 for 4, 5 RBI's, HR) and Matt Anderson (3 for 3, 2 Runs, 4 RBI's, 2 2B's). Andy Farrey, Brendan Pilger, Jason Mitchell, Andrew Llano and JJ Rizzo all chipped in two hits apiece. Sean Tuttle was the winner on the mound with a brilliant performance going the distance:
7 innings, 2 hits, 1 ER and 6 K's...final score 20-2.

Saturday started off a little sluggish in game one as the Petrels could not corral the ball. Brad Brickhouse went 5 innings giving up 7 hits and 9 runs but only 1 was earned. Andrew Llano had 3 hits in 4 at-bats but the Birds could not overcome the sloppy play...final score 13-3 loss.

Game two brought better fortunes and was the big win of the weekend. The Petrels jumped out to an early 4-0 lead but saw that vanish when Sewanee plated 3 in the 4th. Leading 5-3 Sewanee 1st baseman Taylor burns hit two solo HR's to tie the game. His second coming in the top of the 8th. Tied 5-5, the Sea Birds rallied for a run in the bottom half of the inning on a Chris Lucas SAC fly. John Hale went 6 solid innings and left the game with a 5-4 lead and earned a tough no decision. Sam Briend picked up the vulture win, with 3 innings of relief striking out 4, including the side in the ninth. Brendan Pilger paced the offense going 4 for 5 and scoring 3 runs. Chris Lucas added 3 RBI's to go along with his 2 hits. Final score 6-5

Sunday brought the Easter Bunny out to the ballpark and the Sea Faring Birds greeted him with a complete team victory. The Petrels played error less baseball, pounded out 12 hits and 12 runs and the pitchers only gave up seven hits, two runs and walked none. Sam Briend took the hill and went a gutsy 5.1 innings striking out four and allowing two runs. Casey 'The Blur" Kuebler finished off the Tigers throwing the final 1.2 innings. Including coming in with bases loaded and one out and inducing the sweet inning ending 4-6-3 double play. Andrew Llano, Jason Mitchell, Andy Farrey, Matt Anderson each had two hits. Andrew Lofholm wen 1 for 1 and knocked in two runs. Brendan Pilger added the dagger with a double high off of the left center wall with bases loaded to cap the scoring. Final Score 12-2

3-1 was exactly what we needed this weekend. At 4-4 in the SCAC we are in a good spot to contend for a high seed in the SCAC Tournament next month and we have momentum winning 4 out of our last 5 conference games. This weekend we are off of SCAC play but travel to Danville, KY in two weeks to take on the Colonels. You can feel the ever so important MO-mentum starting to build behind us. We are confident at the plate, pitchers are improving and attacking the zone. Besides the sloppy game on Saturday the defense is solid. We still need to improve in all areas, WE can ALL improve, always. Baseball is a game when you think you know it all, you realize you know nothing. Baseball is perfect, but the irony is one cannot achieve perfection in baseball. The game challenges your mind, it teases your sanity... its as simple as it is complex. That's what makes it so damn great!

One of my favorite quotes from my favorite player--

Mike Schmidt- "In this game, the moment you think you have it figured out....it turns around and punches you in the nose and knocks you back a peg or two. "

Notes:

HUGE thank you goes out to the Pilger's for their planning and hard work over the weekend. It is official Sara and John Pilger are the general manager's of the team! They fix speakers and scoreboards, grill burgers, pop the corn and whatever else you can think of! THANK YOU!!

Thank you to all of the out-of-town parents in attendance! I know I missed some of you but we appreciate your support! Hopefully LIVE stats is back for good and Internet broadcast are back this week!!!!!

HAVE A GREAT PETREL DAY!!

Big W to get this thing rolling!

2008-03-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

After dropping the first three games, the Birds behind a STRONG pitching performance of Sam Briend topped the Lynx 6-1 to salvage the weekend. The Petrels came out with a renewed fire Sunday, sparked by a "boisterous" dugout....Brendan Pilger was 3 for 4 in the lead off spot and also had 2 SB's. Andrew Llano and JJ Rizzo each added two out RBI singles to put the game out of reach late.

But it was Sam Briend who stole the show and gave us a very gutsy performance. In his first start of the year Sam was able to limit the Lynx's attack to just 4 hits and one run. He continually pounded the strike zone and forced contact early in the count.

The Petrels will head back on the road Tuesday for a doubleheader at Huntingdon College starting at 3pm CST. Hopefully live stats will be working but no guarantees.

Have a Great Petrel Day!

On to Sunday

2008-03-15T18:16:00.001-07:00

We need to come out with a better effort on Sunday...it was a tough day to play but both teams had to endure the wet conditions. Rhodes was able to capitalize on our mistakes and had some key hits with guys on base that did us in.

Offensively we had runners in scoring position in the first three innings but could not capitalize. We have only been able to muster 1 run over the last 30 innings...

Player Notes:

Chris Lucas - 5 hits in two games and is playing with a fire in is belly. Love It.

Andrew Llano - playing sick and NEVER complaining. He has 3 hits over two games and has been solid at SS. He's playing with nothing in his belly (he hasn't eaten a full meal in a couple of days, except Pedialyte!)

Jonathan Joseph - who continues to be one of the hardest workers on the team, had a very good performance. He has improved so much since the fall, and it is showing.

Anthony Palladino - has been playing great. He has been working hard at practice..staying late to hit, and working hard behind the dish.

Andrew Lofholm - Love his attitude and the way he approaches the game. He's now played three different positions over the last two days!!

From Memphis

2008-03-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

There has been a change in the schedule due to the weather here in Memphis.

Saturday will be a single nine inning game starting at 2pm.

Sunday we will play a DH starting at 12pm

Reporting from Memphis

2008-03-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

After a not so bad trip from ATL to Memphis we are here and well. A new bus with flat screen TV's made the trip tolerable. Movies of choice for the trip: Knocked Up, Boondock Saints, 300....Typical college stuff. Not much other news to report... We'll keep you updated from Memphis, land of blues and rock n' roll.

Check out the LIVE webcam from AutoZone Park, tarp is on! We're expecting rain overnight, but as long as WE do not have to pull the damn tarp, I'm OK with that.

http://www.instacam.com/showcam.asp?id=AZPTN

3/9 News and Notes

2008-03-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since the last post about our season, but we are back. We have struggled to find consistency in the last couple of weeks and the Win column has eluded this team. Guys who we were counting on to step up and lead this team on and off the field have not done so. We need more from EVERYONE. Circumstances have depleted the depth of the squad but if some guys do not step up we will be forced to make some personnel changes. We have challenged them to come to practice with a renewed attitude and ready to work to be a Champion, to work on things till they can't get them wrong rather than work on things till they get them right. There's a big difference.

We travel to Memphis this week to take on SCAC favorite Rhodes in the 1st SCAC series of the year. The goal is and always will be to win a SCAC Championship, that hasn't changed. Hopefully we have learned from our early season struggles and make ourselves better.

If anyone is traveling to Memphis we will be playing at AutoZone Park Friday at 3pm with the rest of the games at Rhodes College.
Friday night we will be eating as a team at Alfred's on Beale Street. If any parents would like to join us please let me know as we have reservations and need a final count.
Spring Break is coming up and we need some help with feeding the team...please contact Sara Pilger.
LIVE stats continues to be an issue. We get the good computer back this week, hopefully it works. But RHODES should run live stats all weekend. Check out their website for info.
Congrats to former Petrel Andy Crosby who recently got engaged!!

Congrats to Steven and Jill Bloodworth

2008-02-24T17:21:00.001-08:00

They are the proud parents of a baby boy....Anderson Bloodworth! Bloody also played from 1999-2002.

Congrats to Dan and Leah Torrenti...

2008-02-22T17:39:00.001-08:00

Dan and Leah welcomed their first child into the world late last night, a baby girl. Dan played for the Petrels from 1999-2002.