Opening Day 2009

Get out your caps, sunflower seeds, and big league chew ladies and gentlemen. Baseball season begins now.

The Knights baseball team starts a new regime tomorrow with a new attitude: one team, one hope, one goal. Coach Rooney leads the way for UCF in his first season as a head coach, moving over from pitching coach of last year’s Omaha-bound LSU tigers. I’ve attended a scrimmage or two so far and from what I can tell, Rooney is an incredible motivator with a need for precision, timing, and discipline. Rooney has already convinced his group of players that they can get to Omaha, and he’s well on his way to convincing me.

I really hope I’m not the only one excited for this year’s baseball squad. We bring back a healthy Kiko Vazquez for his senior year, one of the most hyped power hitters in the nation as a junior. We also bring back Chris “Duffman” Duffy, another powerful cog in our lineup. Duffman is only a junior this year, and still has room to improve his batting average. In order to improve the defense this year, Duffy has been moved to left field where his strong arm can still be utilized, and Shane Brown has moved to third base. Shane is a smaller player, much more suited to the quickness needed to snag line drives at third.

Kyle Sweat will get the opening day start, a great honor for him as a senior. He will most likely be followed by Autstin Hudson on Saturday and freshman D.J. Hicks on Sunday. Caleb Graham will round out the series on Monday.

We lost some good talent last year to the draft and graduation, but here at UCF we don’t have a flop season when that happens, we simply reload.

Say it with me people: OMAHA!