Throughout the 2010 season, CSUB redshirt freshman Emily Bliss and junior Stefanie Frei will be giving you an inside look at Roadrunner softball program. Tune in all season as they give a first-hand perspective on what it is like to be a member of the softball team at CSUB!

Sunday, April 25, 2010  7:34 PM
Hello!  Lots to catch up all up on real quick! First off – our Strike Out Breast Cancer game was a HUUUUGE success.  While all of us ladies looked very stylish in our pink jerseys and pink stirrups, our coaches flaunted matching outfits and even Coach Welter showed off her festive pink collared shirt!  Coach Christie Hill even cut pink ribbons for the other team, the LMU Lions, to wear in their hair. 

The turn out was incredible and we couldn't have asked for more support from this wonderful school, and town.  With all of our fans wearing pink to match us, we were very fortunate to listen to Cherie Shoemake talk about early prevention and how important it is to be well informed.  We would love to thank everyone who came out to support us and our cause and for all of the survivors who made the trip to our field that day.  You are all so brave and we admire you so much! :)  We can't wait for next year to put on another successful fundraiser, which will once again benefit Links for Life (an organization that makes wigs for men/women who are experiencing chemotherapy and lose their hair). 

Next on our list of things to discuss is our SWEEP of the Santa Clara Broncos this past weekend!  The ride up was a blast with senior pitcher Katie Chavez bringing the game UNO with her and suggesting that we play it.  One game (which Kasie Muro won in a matter of five minutes) turned in to three or four and eventually we were playing for over an hour!  It was a great way to keep us occupied and had us laughing and having a good time. 

During the games, we had multiple key hits such as Kristen Archuleta and Ryane Petersen's multiple home runs, and also some amazing playing/pitching performances from Shawna Truan (who is once again a BEEEEAUTIFUL BLONDE!) and Sammy Rodriguez who got a career high 9 strike outs!  Kelli Bailey and Heather Veitch both made stellar plays on the infield and topped off the weekend with hitting equally as good at the plate.  We ended the weekend with an eventful win which ended with Ryane Petersen scoring and making the most entertaining face as she crossed home plate.  This event that happened got us all pumped up and we found ourselves laughing about it and replaying it over in our minds multiple hours later on our way home. 

Finally, on to this weekend (which isn't complete yet because we still have to play New Mexico State tomorrow – Monday – in a doubleheader).  We played the University of San Diego yesterday and today, which ended in us splitting the weekend with them (that means we went 2-2).  We had many key hits, which included Kristen Archuleta bringing her home run record this season to 10 homeruns and a homerun by Jaimey Kleinsmith.  If Kristen gets two more homeruns this season, she will be tied with the school record, which was set by none other than our own Coach Christie Hill in 2006.  Hitting definitely was not a problem with our team this weekend as we hit in to the double digits in both games on Sunday and had at least one runner on base for almost every single inning played.  Some key facts for the games are also that Jaimey Kleinsmith, Ryane Petersen, and Emily Bliss all had 3 hit games and Shawna Truan got her sixth win on the season. 

We were lucky, also, to have 5 recruits us this weekend!  They were all very nice and we look forward to getting to know all of them next year as they will join our team in the Fall.

We play New Mexico State tomorrow at 10 and noon and we can't wait to update you on how these games go, considering the last time we played the Aggies was two years ago. 

With only two weekends left til the season is over… we would like to thank all of you who have been patient with us writing this blog and who have come out to support our team this year.  We love all of you guys! 

Thanks for everything… GO RUNNERS!

Stef and Em

P.S.  MARK ON YOUR CALENDARS MAY 8TH AND 9TH!  THIS IS OUR SENIOR WEEKEND!  COME OUT AND SUPPORT ALL 7 SENIORS IN THEIR FINAL GAMES PLAYING HERE AT CSUB! 

Thursday, April 8, 2010 11:10 am
Hey everyone! This is senior second baseman Kristen Archuleta and I will be filling in for Stef and Em as the special guest :) Sorry for the delay in writing this blog… as you could probably guess, we are all very busy with school and softball! First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! As for our team, we were all a bit tired after getting home at 2:30 Sunday morning from Utah but that eight hour drive sure gave us a lot of time to catch up on some sleep. It was nice to get back early, however, and have the day to spend with friends and family.

This week we have been preparing for our home games against LMU (the first Pacific Coast Softball games in Roadrunner history) and I am especially excited because, not only are we teaming up with Links for Life to “strike out” breast cancer, but we are going to wear pink uniforms! And, as many may know, pink is my favorite color! Everyone has been working really hard to make this event special, and from what I've heard, there will discount ticket prices for those who come to the games wearing pink, as well as pink food at our concession stand and an auction for the jerseys off our back! This is going to be a really great event and I hope many of you will have the chance to make it out to watch us play and join in our support of Links for Life.

I like to keep things short and simple, so I will leave it that! I would like to thank Stef and Em for inviting me to write a blog this week, and we will see you out at the field as we turn our swag on and sweep the competition...haha… sorry, I just had to! :).

Friday, April 2, 2010 9:35 pm …Mountain Time
So… How about that ride in?  …ha ha.  Eight hours on the bus never felt so good!  So we have just arrived in St. George, Utah, for the Pre-Conference Tournament and we figured now would be a good time to catch you up on our lives and our season.  First of all, we wish to apologize for not being with you these past couple weeks; we have been INCREDIBLY busy with finals, softball, aka the usual. ☺  In short, our finals went well, grades were well, and while we didn't do as well as we would have hoped, we played some softball.

With a couple of tough weekends, at home and at Stanford, we came back and won two today against BYU and Idaho State.  Our bats were hot today, and congrats to Heather Veitch on her first collegiate homerun against BYU. Woohooo!  Not only did Heather get her first homerun of her college career, but we were also very fortunate with both Danielle Lyman and Ryane Petersen also having great homeruns.  Samantha Rodriguez pitched a great first game and Shawna Truan was strong in the second.  With a great start, we hope to continue our streak on to tomorrow when we take on fellow conferencee LMU and UNLV.

Tomorrow, we will give you more of an update of our weekend, also including a special surprise player bio!  Unfortunately, you will all have to wait til tomorrow to learn who we have in store for you!

Until next time….. GO RUNNERS!

Stef and Em

Friday, March 12, 2010
Another rainy weekend of softball. We did pretty well in our tournament at Cal State Northridge even though the weather was not on our side. Friday we took on St. Mary's and came out ahead, which made us really happy since they are in our conference. With only one game that day, it left us with a much needed break for homework and relaxation. Emily is a true valley girl, living in Northridge her whole life, so the whole team was invited over to her parents' house for dinner. There is only one word to say about the food…YUM-O, as Rachel Ray would say. After dinner there was still enough time left for karaoke and let me tell you, it's a good thing we are all sticking to softball and not trying out for the REAL American Idol.

Saturday was a little rough because of all the rain. Our first game of the day was pushed back and our second game was cancelled. We played a tough Iowa team and beat them as well. Our game Sunday against Santa Clara started off great with a two-run homer by Ryane, giving us the lead in the first inning. We strung three more runs together, but it was just not enough to beat Santa Clara.

Well we are on the road again this weekend with a doubleheader at UC Santa Barbara and then on to Cal Poly. We hope to see you all next weekend for our doubleheader against CSUN on Saturday and UCLA on Sunday! As always, thank you for all your support.

Until next time… GO RUNNERS!

Stef and Em

Tuesday, February 24, 2010 9:45 AM
Another cold and rainy weekend for us, we are starting to think we are bringing the clouds wherever we go. Ha. Our four-game series against San Jose State was threatened by rain and we were lucky to get all our games in, on schedule too.  We put up a tough fight going into extra innings a couple times just to make things more exciting, we like to keep people on the edge of their seat or lawn chair.  San Jose's massive team of 25 girls had us all (all 16 of us) shocked.  They have almost enough girls for three full teams, playing time must be real fun for them not to mention having to start warm-ups an hour earlier. With how many times San Jose put pinch runners in it seemed as though each player had her own personal base runner.  It's possible to think we were all just a little envious of that, not that we showed it or anything. Ha Well that sums up the excitement from San Jose…No famous people to meet this time.  Come out and support us this weekend as we take on Utah Valley Saturday and Sunday at noon and 2 pm.  We can't wait to see you all there and obnoxious cheering is appreciated. : )

Until next time… GO RUNNERS!   

Stef and EM

Monday, February 15, 2010 8:10 PM
Continuing on, we had a close game against Long Beach State in our only game on Sunday. Stef had a good game while having two key hits including a double and also being the one to score first in the fourth inning, which was exciting. The true excitement didn't come during the game, however. What really was nailbiting was our drive home when our bus almost broke down (yes Katie…JEEPERS CREEPERS!). Between having dance parties in the back of the bus and reminiscing on our weekend up in Vegas, it was overall a good trip. Sure we didn't come out on top the entire weekend, but it was a chance to put ourselves out there against some pretty good competition and in our opinion we think we did pretty well.

We look forward to this upcoming weekend in San Jose and we will be continuing coverage while at the hotel (hopefully we get back before 1:30 am like we did this weekend.  Lol) keeping you informed and up to date with what is going on with our team!

Throwing two in the Air…

Stef and Em

Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:01 AM
WELCOME TO VEGAS BABY! We are underway with our first weekend here in Vegas and while we have had some good games, and some interesting games, we have been having fun starting our season off. Let's start with the drive up: We left school at about 2:30pm and drove all the way through Baker and finally arriving in Las Vegas around the middle of the night. Anywho, going on to the next day…we experienced one of the longest days on earth! Our schedule was set so that we would play two games on Friday and Saturday, while having one game on Sunday.

Going back to the longest day on earth though, since our schedule had us playing at 6pm and 8pm Friday night, we went to the fields to scout out the other players and also to mentally prepare ourselves. Little did we know that all the games were about an hour and a half behind and we wouldn't start our games til about 7:30pm and about 10pm, meaning that we wouldn't get back to our hotel until about 1:15am Saturday morning. Lol. Luckily, we went to Chipotle for lunch and to our excitement, saw UFC fighter Chuck Liddell! 



Kasie even got him to pick her up!



Our two games were eye opening; one which was against UNLV and another against Illinois State, and unfortunately, we didn't win; however, we still played well and showed that we are ready for any obstacle.  

Today (Saturday) was a real treat. Since we didn't play til 6pm again, we were allowed to sleep in and/or go to the outlets before having lunch together. Not only were we excited to go shopping, but we were more excited to be allowed to sleep in and not worry about rushing in the morning to get ready. We walked over to the outlets and immediately went crazy. Between going on the carrousel, walking in and out of Coach, Windsor, and Charlotte Russe (without buying the store out), we met up with our parents and had a nice lunch. We then walked back to our hotel and got ready to start our evening of games. We played Kent State, whom we beat in an exciting game and UC Davis, which even though we lost this game, we put up a good fight. The game was close the all the way until the last inning when they pulled ahead and was able to keep the lead. This didn't hurt our spirits though! Between Stefanie getting a bloody nose in the middle of the game and having to play with a tampon stuck in her nose, and girls such as Sammy Rodriguez and Katie Chavez making cheers up in the dugout, we had fun. In both games, we had some amazing plays, some by Karlee Rodgers, Sammy, and some amazing hits, such as homeruns by both Ryane Petersen and Kelli Bailey.

Since no place was open late, we were stuck with going to fast food. The funny thing was though, that all fast food places were closed – EXCEPT THE DRIVE THRU! Therefore, we were stuck WALKING through the DRIVE THRU at McDonalds. 

This was quite the experience.  Even our bus driver, Robert, got out of the bus to take a picture of us in line with the cars. 

On another subject, who knew Katie Chavez was such a jokester! She says the funniest stuff and is always “throwing two in the air”.  Her non-stop laughter (that kinda sounds like a chipmunk) and her awesome dance moves with her surprising amount of rhythm is the cutest and most adorable thing to watch. Literally, sweet tea came out of Emily's nose when she was laughing at Katie making cheers to songs such as “Drop a Drop a Bomb Girl”, and many other classics like “Party at CSUB!” (Come check her out at the next home game… tickets $5 :]  )

…to be continued

Sunday February 7, 2010 2:00 pm
Well today is Super Bowl Sunday (GO COLTS!) and it is also about four days until we leave for our Vegas road trip!   This coming week, we are going to be preparing even more for our season opener and try to make sure that we have covered every possibility that can occur in each game. This last week, we ended with two days of scrimmages and worked on situations to try to get ourselves in to the game mentality.

Friday, was also Homecoming for CSUB and most of us girls participated in that. In attendance were Ryane Petersen, Chelsey Bell, Emily Bliss, Kasie Muro, Brittany Johnson, Katie Chavez, …and Shirlie.

It was nice to see everyone dressed up and looking spiffy in their party dresses and makeup. It became clear that our team can clean up real nice! We had some great memories that night. To name some key words – FALLING, TOILET PAPER, “DROP IT DROP IT LOW JOHN,” and BLUE MAN GROUP. To say the least, our team is FUN!

Other than this, there really isn't a lot to update you on softball-wise. We will be updating from the road and keep you informed about how we do and who does what.

So until next time…

GO RUNNERS!

Stef and Em

Friday, January 30, 2010 9:34 pm
This will be a short entry today, we promise. It's now 12 days until we leave for our tournament at UNLV and the anticipation is growing. We have been starting to work more on situations and have been setting our focus on getting prepared to start our season. Not much else to report; however, we do have some big news: our team is full of fashion masters. Here is an example of what we mean.

Emily, Kasie Muro, Jamie Miller, and Chelsey are bringing back old styles. Em, Kasie and Jamie are modeling the sweatshirt around the waist look, while Chels shows off her boots. To anyone who might be in a tough jam, don't worry, you can turn to us! We will give you the best fashion advice and even if it seems old school, we believe that you can rock it. For appointments, you may comment at the bottom of this page and tell us how fashionable we look! Thanks!

GO RUNNERS!

Em and Stef

January 25, 2010 9:25 pm
Every once in a while, we will be giving girls on our team a chance to write the blog in order to get to know them as well and get a larger picture of who our team is. Today, we want to introduce you to our other roommate, Chelsey Bell. 

Hey everyone! My name is Chelsey Bell. As I'm sure you all know, I am Emily and Stefanie's other roommate. They wanted me to write you a little something about myself so you can get to know me. I am a junior at CSUB and I play outfield. I love playing with all the girls and we have a lot of fun. I am from a little town called Ridgecrest. It's literally in the middle of the desert and it's about two hours from Bakersfield, which isn't too far but far enough to where I can't just go home when ever I want. Bakersfield is definitely a big step up from Ridgecrest so I actually don't mind it at all. My major is Child and Family Studies with a minor in Sociology. I'm not sure what I want to do yet after I graduate but I'm sure it will come to me when the time comes. One thing that many people don't know about me is that I LOVE to hunt with my dad. I try to go when ever I can when softball is not in the way. I haven't been able to go that much since I've been in college but it's a lot fun to spend some time with my dad. Well, Emily wanted me to introduce myself and tell you all a little about me so here you go. Enjoy and have a great week!

Chelsey

January 24, 2010 9:02 pm
Hey guys. I'm on my own this time for the blog... Sorry it's been so long since our last post. We haven't had a lot going on since it rained SO MUCH this entire week and we were stuck practicing in the gym the entire time except for Friday when we spent most of the time outside – until it started pouring. Other than that, not much else has been going on.  Yesterday (Saturday) we had a recruit visit us. We had a lot of fun and got to start the visit out with the usual: meeting with coach and a campus tour. Then the real fun started. We went to dinner with two of our coaches Christie Hill, and Kristi Lansford, while being accompanied by Brittany Johnson, Katie Chavez, Chelsey Bell, …and Shirlie:]  All of us then headed over to Rosemary's Ice Cream and introduced her to one of the best ice cream sundaes Bakersfield has. After we were stuffed beyond belief, AMF bowling ally only seemed appropriate. We compared our bowling skills with our softball skills. Who knew that Chelsey would throw a Turkey and be the Queen of the Pins!! Haha. 

Other than that little bit, nothing has really gone in this place we call home nine months out of the year. There's about two weeks left of practice until we head off to Vegas to play in the UNLV tournament and I am so excited to be back on the road playing with my girls. This will be the first road trip since I tore my ACL almost a year ago.  Whoa. Just realized that was almost a year ago…crazy how fast time flies! And all I can say is how amazing it is to be back on that field playing with my friends and smelling the crayon smell of our dirt!  I have missed it:] 

Well… Until Next time…

GO RUNNERS!

Emily

January 15, 2010 8:21 pm
Hello again! With all of us practicing and getting ready for the season, everybody is working hard both on the field and off the field. Study! Study! Study! Being able to play softball in college is a dream come true. However, when you look at our title, we are student-athletes. We have to attend four hours of mandatory study hours per week.  For our team, these mandatory hours start on Tuesday of this upcoming week. It is nice for us to have time set aside for us to do our homework because during this time when we are in the library it is easier to focus and we don't get distracted…most of the time:]

We are getting closer to season and can't wait to put all our hard work and practicing to the test! Less than a month…the count down begins.

Until next time…  GO RUNNERS!

Stef and Em

January 13, 2010 11:30 am
Hey everybody! We are now in our second week of school and I guess it is safe to say that we are finally getting settled into our classes. It seems, though, that there is literally only time for softball, eating, sleeping (barely), homework, and maybe a small amount of time to breathe.

It's been exciting though getting back in to the “swing” of things (get it.. swing:] ) and we have all had fun hanging out and hearing all about each other's winter break adventures and finding out who did what and all that good stuff.  We know that the next few months will be extra exciting for us because in addition to playing softball and all the traveling that goes with that, we are going to be helping our Bride to Be on the team (Kristen Archuleta) out with planning and picking out dresses for her June wedding. This is really awesome because not only are we helping her, but Stefanie is actually the M.O.H (Maid of Honor), and Emily is a Bridesmaid, along with our other roommate Chelsey. Now that her wedding is less than 6 months away (GASP) we are trying to figure out what dresses the bridesmaids are gonna wear, which means we get to try on multiple styles and colors of dresses while Kris intently watches. We will be sure to post pictures and let you know about this process as we get closer to the date!!

Another important event (at least to us) is Homecoming, which means we get to ditch our cleats and dirty uniforms for a day and actually look like girls for once! Haha. This also means that we don't want to have our icky softball tans to show when we wear our cute dresses so we are all tanning! This has been quite comical because well, Emily is almost transparent she is so white. The first time she and Chels came home, well let's just say they resembled lobsters. As our tans progress and we find dresses that makes us look GORGEOUS<3 we will be sure to update you and let you know how dark we get (Emily will probably just be an off white…fyi).

Anyways, we are at our house right now preparing ourselves for practice today, which will be interesting because a bunch of us are sore and today we are supposed to have quite a bit of throwing and lift weights (yeah that's right.  We lift.) This is also pretty nice because this means that we will be all nice and toned, so watch out!

That's it for us today.  Have a great day everyone, and until next time…

GO RUNNERS!

Stef and Em

January 7, 2010  7:32 pm
Hello everyone and welcome to the "On Deck with Stef and Em" blog for the CSU Bakersfield Softball Team! Our names are Emily Bliss and Stefanie Frei and well, we play softball here (GO RUNNERS!). We were chosen to write a little entry every few days about what it means to be a CSUB softball player and to give everyone an insight in to our lives, so you can get to know us a little better. First let's introduce ourselves.

Hey Everyone! My name is Emily Bliss and I am a redshirt freshman and infielder here at CSUB. I'm a liberal studies major, with a concentration in history.  My goal is to eventually become a school teacher and coach high school softball. I'm a redshirt freshman because unfortunately for me, I tore my ACL on February 13, 2009, (yes…Friday the 13th) and had reconstructive surgery on March 19, 2009. It took a few months to recover, but I'm finally back in action and ready for the challenge. I really enjoy playing softball here because not only has it given me the opportunity to play ball and get an education, but I have made friends that I know I will have for a very long time.  Some of them are my closest friends and it seems like I'm always with them, which I guess is true considering I live with two of my teammates, one of which is Stef. That has been a transition all in itself considering I lived in the dorms last year and didn't really have to worry about anything important, like paying bills, cooking for myself (which I'm still learning how to do), and just being in a house! It's a lot of fun though because I have a lot more freedom and I feel a lot more responsible for myself; kinda like a reality check. My two roomies (Stef and Chelsey Bell) are great though and honestly I can't wait for what the rest of the year is going to hold. I mean, afterall, we are in TWENTYTEN, so now anything is possible. Stef and I will do our best to keep you updated on what goes on with the team and what interesting things happen.

After Emily's intro there is not much else for me to add. A little about me…My name's Stefanie and I am a junior outfielder on the softball team. I'm majoring in business with a concentration in sports management and I also want to get certified in personal training as well as strength and conditioning. There is definitely never a dull moment on and off the field with our team and we have some good times. Emily and I hope to fully share our experiences of CSUB softball, so you won't have to miss out. We can't wait to start season and see where we stand in our conference. (I guess I need to work on my writing skills, after Em's essay…)

Well, we are finally back in softball season and this year looks pretty promising. We only lost one senior last year and got two transfer students and a freshman this year to add to our softball family. This is pretty nice considering we are all used to each other and are comfortable being ourselves. This is also pretty funny because since we are so used to one another we really don't hold much back anymore. This makes every single day new and exciting! Since we are now in the PCSC, we will start playing the teams that are in our conference and see how well we match up against them. We are, after all, in our fourth and final transition year in to Division I and are going to be on the road for most of our season. We are going to be traveling to places such as Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, and a lot of places all around the big C-A. Since we all love our technology, we will be updating from the road and keeping you informed on our interesting bus rides and fun moments. 

Today of all days (cold and cloudy) was picture day.  We all took some pretty pictures even though it was crazy cold and with the help of Em, we will get to see them a little early.  While having funny moments, such as trying to help Shawna (Truan) learn how to do a handstand, and after much trial and error, finally landing one, we feel that picture day was a success. 

After we took our pictures, we got to workout, which was deja vu for some girls considering those who didn't make their times have to run every morning at about 7:15. The workout consisted of us doing core work and some agility work to whip us all back in shape after the 6 and a half week break that everyone experienced. Let's just say that everyone can feel the workouts working:] haha.  In fact, as we write this right now (while we are watching the Alabama vs. Texas BCS Bowl Football game with Karlee Rodgers, Danielle Lyman and their dogs over at our house), all of us are so glued to the couches considering we don't want to move a muscle. So anyway, that is a little bit about us and we will continue to keep you updated and fully informed with news about our team and interesting facts along the way. Hope you guys enjoyed reading, and we will see you all out on the field!

Love,

Emily #11 and Stefanie #9

P.S.  Sorry about this long introduction… Emily likes to talk:]