Men UConn @ Tampa FL (Fri. 2/18/22 @6:52p vs. USF > Sat. 2/19/22 @12p vs. Charlotte & Sun. 2/22/22 @8:50 vs. Louisville (All games audio>MIXLR)

[dbmill]

Bottom 7th, Casey Dana and Kevin Ferrer both get walks with 1 out. Simmons with a single loads the bases. Chris Brown sac fly makes it 5-0 UConn.

 

[huskymedic]

Donlan!

 

[dbmill]

Donlan with a 3 run homer!!! 8-0 UConn. First hit as a Husky. Both UConn catchers have homered this weekend.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[dbmill]

Top 8th, Sullivan with a scoreless inning. 8-0 UConn. It could be interesting to see who starts the top of the 9th on the mound. UConn could possibly put in another pitcher who hasn't seen action this weekend with the big lead, but we'll see about that.

 

[dbmill]

Bottom 8th, UConn loads the bases with no outs, including another walk which gives them 6 walks so far this game (they had a total of 6 for the previous 2 games this weekend). Dana sac fly makes it 9-0 UConn.

Ferrer with another walk makes it 7 walks for the game for UConn.

 

[dbmill]

Top 9th, Willis takes the mound for UConn. Coach Penders not taking any chances on the opening weekend. Can't blame him, as in the past it has been pretty rare for UConn to have a winning record after the opening weekend.

 

[CL82]

No question, a fine UConn debut for the Harvard Grad transfer Enzo Stefanoni.

So cool that he wanted to play at the school so famously linked to his great uncle Enzo Patoni.

 

[dbmill]

Top 9th, Willis not sharp and gives up a couple runs. But Willis does get the final out, UConn wins 9-2.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]

 

[Bomber36]

Great start to the season!

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]

 

[Rocko52]

Emphatic front foot forward for the season, what a fun opening weekend!

 

[huskymedic]

Lots to clean up moving forward but…

 

[dbmill]

Lots to clean up moving forward but…

Chris Jones noted repeatedly this weekend that South Florida brought in three teams that play on home turf fields, and not grass for this tournament. These turf field teams all seemed to have problems getting used to playing on the grass field, but that would not necessarily explain the throwing errors that were mixed in with the other fielding problems.

 

[hardcorehusky]

Winning 2 of 3 is always the minimum, but especially opening weekend against 3 warmer weather schools. Interesting that we have a problem with grass and dirt when that is all we have known until last year! That being said, some guys need to relax (Huber, Gallagher), get their timing down on D and also heal up. I think we will make better contact as the spring wears on.

Pitching wise, we had 2 great starts and Willis, Coe and Cooke looked really good. I always look toward the second and third weekends to see the adjustments.

Finally, Kevin Ferrer needs to have regular at bats. He can do damage.

 

[HCCForever]

Winning 2 of 3 is always the minimum, but especially opening weekend against 3 warmer weather schools. Interesting that we have a problem with grass and dirt when that is all we have known until last year! That being said, some guys need to relax (Huber, Gallagher), get their timing down on D and also heal up. I think we will make better contact as the spring wears on.

Pitching wise, we had 2 great starts and Willis, Coe and Cooke looked really good. I always look toward the second and third weekends to see the adjustments.

Finally, Kevin Ferrer needs to have regular at bats. He can do damage.

I would add David Smith to guys that need to relax. He didn't look comfortable on Friday night. Good start to season and hope for sweep in Jacksonville next weekend.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[dbmill]

Pitching wise, we had 2 great starts and Willis, Coe and Cooke looked really good. I always look toward the second and third weekends to see the adjustments.

Finally, Kevin Ferrer needs to have regular at bats. He can do damage.

Chris Jones during the weekend broadcasts kept talking about Kevin Ferrer coming back from injuries. Not sure if he was talking about his injuries from last season, or something more recent. Whatever the case, if Ferrer is able to play the field, it would certainly increase the possibility of him getting playing time. It will also be interesting to see what goes on with Christian Fedko's playing time as well. He has carried a good bat over his years at UConn, I imagine at times he will see some playing time at 2B.

One thing I was really pleased about this weekend was the performance of the bullpen. UConn had 9 guys come into games in relief over the weekend, and the only pitcher who had a really bad time of it was Bobby McBride. This from a bullpen that Josh MacDonald said in his preseason interview while there were a bunch a talented young players on the UConn pitching staff, they had to show what they could do in a regular season games. Well, for the most part what they showed looked very good. We'll see if they can come up with similar performances in the weeks to come. But what we saw from this weekend, it looks like UConn could end up having a lot depth on this pitching staff.

 

[huskymedic]

Bryant (w/ a little luck) takes the first two from #12 ECU. The H/H down the road w/ Bryant can pay dividends if they keep it rolling.

Bryant swept ECU this weekend.

 

[businesslawyer]

It was a good start, and it’s not easy for a northern club to head to the Sunbelt in February and be competitive when you’re lucky if you can practice outdoors, and if you can it’s not baseball weather.

That having been said, plenty to clean up but unfair to worry too much about it after 3 baseball games. I’ll give it another weekend or two before I worry about any individual not performing.

 

[uconnbaseball]

Can't help wondering how good we'd be if we had Crawford available.

Not bad results though. I suspect USF will probably be a "better" win than Louisville down the line.

North Florida is awful this year. Need to win at least 2 out of 3.