Where did the month of June go?

Wow, what a summer so far!! June has flown by and there is no slowing down in July. I have spent the last month virtually living out of a suitcase. Between recruiting and camps I have traveled from Northern Virginia to Richmond, VA to Las Vegas to NJ, to PA and am headed back to PA tomorrow for the weekend. After the 4th we are holding two weeks of camp right here at George Mason.

Coaching is time consuming but I cant think of a better way to spend my time than traveling, meeting new people and watching a lot of great softball. I also love working camps all around the country and learning more about the game from other great players and coaches. I had the pleasure of meeting and working camp with Stacy Nelson, former Florida Gator and now a member of the National team. Great pitcher and great with the kids.

Gotta go! Getting ready to hit the road again tonight!!

Some pictures from last weeks alumni-athlete golf outing!

Let's see..it's been a while since I posted. I have been taking it easy the last week or so. We start recruiting this weekend and camps are fast approaching so the summer will get real busy next week. I've been doing a variety of things, I watched just about every regional and WCWS softball game. I was hoping an East Coast team would finally win but congrats to the PAC-10...that is truly where the best softball is played year in and year out. I spent sometime on the boat which is by far one of my favorite places to be. Spent time with the family and friends that I neglect during the season.

We are talking now about our fall practice and game schedule and what we want to accomplish with our preseason. We have got to get better defensively. That will be a focus for sure.

Three Mason Alums coaching in the District Finals tonight. Linda Young, Corey Stokes and Lesley Hassen coach Fairfax HS who is taking on Centreville for the District title tonight!

Twitter

Ok, so I guess the new thing these days is to twitter. So for any of you out there that do this check out Mason Softball updates as well as what I am up to from time to time at www.twitter.com/masonsoftball.

The Future

It's crazy to think that the season is over already. It flies by every year but this one is a little different. I want to fast forward the summer and get back on the field tomorrow. We have a great core group of young players that really progressed throughout the year and although we struggled to win games this year, they are eager to learn, working hard and know that they can win at this level.

Congratulations are in order for a handful of players. The CAA awards were announced today and we had 4 players recognized. Becky Anderson was named 1st team all-CAA as a pitcher/designated player and Miranda Cranford was named 2nd team in the same position. Morgan Davis and Alyssa See were both named to the CAA All-Rookie team!

Mason Softball Earns Academic Recognition

The Mason Softball team was included in the 767 teams publicly recognized this year for high achievement that represent 11.9 percent of the approximately 6,484 Division I teams. The list includes 448 women's teams and 319 men's or mixed squads.
The APR provides a real-time look at a team's academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete. The APR includes eligibility, retention, and graduation in the calculation and provides a clear picture of the academic culture in each sport.

Great job in the classroom ladies!!!!

The sun is shining today and hopefully there will be no more rain for the rest of the season! There are a couple of exciting events coming up the next two weekends. We have a home series agains UNCW this weekend. Following the game on Sunday we are doing a free clinic for Girl Scouts in the area! We usually do this once a year and it's a lot of fun! Saturday, April 25 we host Delaware and all of our softball Alumni. I can't wait to catch up with everyone, it's been too long! Sunday, April 26 we will honor our two seniors at our last home game of the year. 4 years goes by so fast!

Weekend Recap

Well the results in the W/L column were not what we wanted but we progressed throughout the weekend and believe that we can not only compete but win against the best teams in our league. Defense continues to be our biggest struggle. The best thing about this group is that they continue to work very hard at getting better and we can see it happening pretty fast.
We had a day off yesterday and the kids hit the weight room pretty hard this morning. No mid-week games leading up to the weekend so we will have time to address some mistakes that have been happening as well as heal up some wounds before we head up to Baltimore for a series against Towson.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! First conference series coming up against Hofstra this weekend. I'll be cheering on our Men's basketball team in the NIT tonight.

CAA Pitcher of the Week!

Congrats to Becky for being named CAA Pitcher of the Week! Also, congrats to Miranda Cranford for being named CAA Rookie of the Week last week! Keep it up Patriots!!

It is suppose to be a beautiful 60 degree weekend. There will be games all weekend as we host the Mason Invitational!

Well, we got a little snow last night. Our game tomorrow against UVA has been postponed. Hopefully this stuff will be gone before the weekend.

Game Day Pic!

We won our first two ball games on the new field today! Becky Anderson got the win in Game 1. We were down 3 runs and came back to win 4-3. Brianne Pease got the win in Game 2 as we cruised to a 10 - 1 victory in 5 innings. Rachael Davies hit her first homerun of the year in Game 2.

I thought overall we looked a lot more comfortable than we did last weekend. Defensively we played better but still need to play catch better. We swung the bat well and had pretty good at bats all day. We made some baserunning mistakes and left a few runs on the field but all in all we keep getting better everyday.

A couple of pics from our trip this weekend.

Weekend Recap

This weekend was a great experience for our ball club. It's impossible to create game speed at practice and we finally got to get outside and see what Div. I softball is all about. The great thing is that even though we fell short in a couple close ball games, our kids know they can not only compete, but win at this level. I really liked the way we reacted when we got back to Fairfax. We had some kids putting work in on their day off and we got after it in the weight room this morning.

This afternoon will be our first practice in the new ballpark! It looks great and can't wait to see how it's going to play.

Opening Day!

Where to begin? :) We were 1-1 on the day and while we did some very good things on the ballfield all day, we have some things we need to work on and clean up.

I guess I'll start with our travel day on Thursday. We got in some good BP during the day and were all set for a 6pm flight. Well that was delayed due to the crazy amount of wind we had and we didn't get in the air until close to 9 o'clock. It was about midnight by the time all the kids got to bed and about 1am by the time I hit the pillow.

Game day - 6:30am breakfast and headed to the park at 7 for a 9 and 11 o'clock game.

Game 1 - Western Carolina - We had a very strong start to the season with a 7-1 victory. We had the shut-out going into the bottom of the 7th, got a little sloppy defensively and gave up the 1 run. For some reason those last 3 to 6 outs of a ball game are tough to get.

Game 2 - Villanova - Started right where we left off swinging the bats and put up 3 runs in the first inning. We were in control thru 4 innings, gave up a couple of runs and were still up by 1 going into the 7th and let it slip away losing 6-5. Pretty frustrating loss but I think we learned a lot about what we need to do to manage a game with a lead. A little better decision making and we are 2-0.

Tommorrow we face UCF and UT-Arlington.

By the way.......the weather is beautiful!!!!

New Website

Check out Mason Athletics new website. www.gomason.com

Outside Today!

It is 55 and sunny today! Wahoooooo! We're gonna get a little work in outside before the big game today. I don't dislike the Steelers but I'm going for the underdog. Go Cardinals!

Here we Go!

Well practice is officially under way. We just finished our 5th workout in three days and the team is getting after it! The only thing that could make it any better would be for mother nature to give us a few days of 60 degree weather. It's hard to believe that opening day is just three weeks away. Time flies! We leave Feb. 12 for Orlando for a tournament hosted by UCF. We've opened up there the last few years and it's been great. We get out of the cold for a few days and get to face some great competition.

GO PATRIOTS!

Well the Holiday's are behind us and we have one more week until we get underway. I can't wait until these kids get back on campus so we can get to work. First practice is scheduled for Jan. 18, cross your fingers for good weather.

A Senior's Perspective

I can't believe how fast the fall semester went. Time has been flying by and it's especially scary for me because I'm graduating in May and I need to find a real job (too bad no one will pay me to play softball in the real world!). I think our fall season went really well. And our fitness test results at the end of the season really show that we became a better team this fall through every workout and practice. It's so cool to watch everyone get better and better everyday, especially the freshmen. I can't even begin to explain how excited I am about the new field! It's going to be awesome to play on a sweet field for my last season at Mason and get lots of W's on it.
It's nice to be back in New Jersey for winter break and spend time with my family during the holidays. I miss my teammates and coaches and want to wish them all a Merry Belated Christmas and a Happy New Year. We'll all be back together in a couple weeks to continue working hard and have a successful 2009 season!

-ALI BRYAN