Scenes From Columbia, SC: The Diary Of Paco Figueroa

June 7, 2002

Well, today’s the day. It’s game one of the Super Regional. I had a little trouble sleeping last night. It’s not just because I’m a bit nervous about the game, but I’ve felt like I’ve been getting sick for a few days. Last night, it hit me. I know I’m coming down with something. I just wish it could have happened at a better time.

I really didn’t feel like eating too much at breakfast. But I’ve taken some cold medicine and now I feel a little better. My brother and dad were going to get some lunch. So I’ve asked them to bring me back a sandwich.

We’ll be meeting at 3 pm for a hitters meeting. During these meetings Gino DiMare, our assistant coach, will go over the scouting report. We’ll look at the pitchers tendencies and talk about what we want to accomplish as hitters.

It’s now 4 pm. We’ll be leaving in ˝ hour to go to the game. We’ll get some batting practice in as well as some infield work. Wish us luck.

Well, the game didn’t go as I’d hoped for. We dug a hole for ourselves early, by being down 10-0 by the 3rd inning. But if there’s something positive that came from this, we never stopped fighting. Danny Matienzo came up big with a couple of home runs, as well as Kevin Howard and Javy Rodriguez with one a piece. The final was 10-7, but if we’d had a couple more innings, I felt we could have made up the ground.

There were a lot of people at the game. It was a little over 6,000 in attendance. But I’ll tell you something. Even though it was loud, the fans in Gainesville were worse. Here, the fans are yelling and rooting for your team. At Florida, they not only root for their team, but they call out some very personal things to our fans and players. I found it interesting to see how fans within the same conference (SEC) can be so different.

After the game, Coach Morris spoke to the group. He said that we did a good job of coming back from a deficit, and never giving up. But, we gave up too many runs early and this is something that we cannot do tomorrow. If we do, we’ll be going home.

I’m not ready to leave just yet.