Cedarville University Yellow Jackets

May 11, 2018

Hey,
 
So, our season ended last weekend. Overall, our season didn’t go how we wanted and expected it to. There’s no getting around that. Between wins and losses, and dealing with injuries all year long the whole year was just kind of a weird one. I don’t think I’ve ever quite seen anything like it, but for what we had I thought we competed well and gave it our best shot everyday. That’s all you can ask at the end of the day.
 
I’m excited about where the program is at. I think there’s a lot of young guys that got a lot of experience this year and are going to be big contributors in the years to come. I think one thing this season did accomplish was giving a lot of guys opportunities they might not have had in a normal situation, and that will only benefit them moving forward. Once some of the older guys get back we’ll be back in good shape.
 

Josh Kneeland’s Top Ten Funniest Moments of His Career

#1 – Broken Leg

• One day after fall practice freshman year we ended right at the same time as softball did. Softball always parks up at the lot in between our two fields, and we always park in the grass out past right field of our field….across the road. Since we got done about the same time it just so happened that we were walking across the road to our cars while the softball team was driving past to go up to Cal. Josh saw this, so when he got to the road he fell over and started screaming bloody murder as he grabbed his leg. He was howling. We all ran over to see what was wrong. Josh was actually fine, and we all knew that, but the antics didn’t stop. It went on for at least two minutes….Long enough for 7 softball cars to get backed up on the road waiting for him to move. We finally got him up and, with the assistance of two other guys, off the road, but the softball girls weren’t happy. I have a feeling they knew it was a joke, but it was still funny.

 
Thanks for reading this year. It’s been fun.

Love you guys,

M. Russell

May 2, 2018

Hey,

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Josh Kneeland’s Top 10 Funniest Moments of His Career
 
#2 – Pretending to be blind
   
There’s not much else to write this week. All of our freshmen have been introduced, and we haven’t really had that many feuds this year. That may or may not be due to the absence to a few key players this season, but it is what it is. I do want to finish up this week by talking about our Seniors a little bit, though, because I think they’ve had a real lasting impact on this program. When we got here as freshmen we soon learned that the baseball team had earned a bit of a poor reputation around campus, but none of us really accepted that. Our group as a whole made a conscious decision that the team wasn’t going to look the same when we left. We’re headed into our last weekend series now, and while I’m proud of a lot of things this group has done, I’m most proud to say that we’re leaving the program in a much better place than we found it. Each guy has taken care of their business and been serious about the decision they’ve made as ballplayers and as men. We haven’t made it all the way through unscathed, but when we’ve tripped up we’ve handled it honestly and responsibly. Not a single one of us is leaving without having made significant strides in maturity and leadership. On the field stuff is important. You’ll never ever hear me say that winning isn’t important because it is, but this group has realized that there are things in life that are more important than wins and losses and that they sometimes need to be addressed in proper order. A lot of guys in this program have been positively impacted because of the culture that this group of Seniors created.
 
As encouraged as I am to look back and see how far things have come, I’m even more encouraged to look forward and see where it’s going. The guys we’re passing the torch off to are no joke. We’ve got some leaders and some men in that locker room who are more than capable of steering the baseball team in the direction it needs to go. Skill development and sport training are important, but so is culture. Without the right culture none of that is going to matter. At Cedarville, we know that means a lot more than just accountability and a strive for excellence. It means perspective and motive and intentionality, too. I’m thankful for guys who have come behind us and bought into that, and as we leave I’m excited to see how this team continues to grow in the future.
 
Love you guys,
 
M. Russell

April 25, 2018

Hey guys,

I’m filling in for the Shark this week and I know it’s some big shoes to fill but I’ll do my best. I’m definitely not as articulate and probably not as funny, but I think I can give a decent update on the team from my view as the first base coach.







Team Update:

As Marc touched on last week, everyone on the team is hurt. Here is a quick rundown on the list of injuries from the season:

• Two torn UCL’s
• One broken wrist
• One broken jaw
• One old man disease
• One in need of a full back replacement
• One UCL Sprain
• One Elbow chrodomasomething aka bone spurs aka can’t bend or extend the elbow
• One partially torn rotator cuff
• Six pulled hamstrings
• One broken nose/eye/face

We are currently leading the G-MAC in balks, trips to Golden Corral, victories in Fortnite, and ibuprofen consumption.

The Incident:

I would like to take a moment to focus on the most recent injury and what is being known as “The Incident” from our trip to Trevecca. Now I was in the dugout watching the pregame festivities so I was not too aware of what happened. RS Freshman pitcher Elliott Gilmore broke his nose on Friday, April 20th. The injury did not occur in the game and was caused by the actions of another teammate (Andrew Dunbar). I was able to sit down with all parties involved to get to the bottom of what really happened to Elliott’s face:

Elliott’s Story:
“I had just finished throwing with Drew Minnich, we walked in to the dugout to gather some of our things. Then, as I was heading for the gate, I thought I heard a bee buzzing near my face. Little did I know it was a fastball coming from the hands of who I thought was my good friend, Andrew Dunbar. The ball struck me on the nose and I was sent to the ground, only to look up and see a smirk on Andy’s face. I could no longer feel the pain of my nose, but just the pain of my heart and the betrayal of a teammate.”

Drew’s Story:
“We were in the bullpen grabbing our stuff and so we were walking in the bullpen and there were still guys warming up on the field but we didn’t think much of it since we were still in the bullpen. Then I heard the sound of a 90mph fastball popping the mitt in the bullpen. However, it wasn’t the mitt. It was Elliott’s face. I knew it was bad when his nose was pointing South and his face was looking East. Once I realized what happened in the bullpen I ran to get Kurt and told him to bring the cavalry (aka Trainer Brett and the med kit). I brought Kurt back to the bullpen to save my teammate’s life.

Dunbar’s Story:
“It was a beautiful Friday night; I was blessed with the opportunity to throw with Eli “The Truth” Weldy before the game. It had been just over a week since my last camel ride so my arm was feeling pretty juicy and I was letting the ball fly. I overthrew Weldy a few times and was curious if someone had poured concrete in his shoes based on the attempts he made at catching the ball. One throw sailed high and to the right and as Weldy was unable to make the catch (When asked to comment as to why he couldn’t jump to make the catch, Eli mentioned his pregame snack of Honeybuns and mentioned that he may have been a little sluggish from the tasty treats) I noticed the ball was heading directly for Gilmore’s left side of the nose piece of his Oakley’s. I debated yelling at him to look out but feared he would have turned and caught the ball square which would have been much worse than the broken nose. So while yes I broke his nose, you could also say I saved his life…by being silent.”

Quotes of the Szn:

“Kurt, can you pour some cold water on my hands to warm them up?” – Jesse Bush
“Oh yeah, well my dad eats light bulbs” – Josh Kneeland
“Guys get this tarp off we have a storm rolling in” – Coach Manes

Freshman Spotlight:

Full Name: Noah James Schleinitz

What are your three favorite things about Cedarville?
DJDraggy’s pre-practice playlists; The mints in the library, I’m sure the librarians hate me because I’ve at least taken 200 this week alone; The reputation that the baseball team and Brock hall residents get, I enjoy the glares as soon as I tell them where I live and what sport I play.

Which Senior are you going to miss the most?
Definitely Eli Weldy, I’ll always miss “the truth” with his influential poems and his long talks to his girlfriend on the bus ride home.  Love you, Weldy.

What is the coolest thing you have planned for the summer?
I plan to go out West and backpack the Rockies for a week, I will get to know nature in more ways than I should.

Who is better at Fortnite, you or your roommate Bryce Hughes?
Some nights I think my stuff can compete with him, but the most days that I watch him until 2 am while I try to sleep help me realize that I’ll never be as good as him.

Speaking of Hughes, what are your feelings towards him dating your little sister Elli?
Wait what??? I was never informed of this, this is news to me, I’m going to have to have a talk with him if he’s not playing Fortnite right now.
 
Thanks for reading.

Markus “Daddy” Neff

April 19, 2018

Hey,
 
Sorry I missed you last week.
 
We went 2-2 last week taking victories against Ohio Christian and Alderson Broaddus. Shout out to Josh Kneeland for striking out FIFTEEN in 8.2 innings on Saturday. He was a stud all game long, and although he couldn’t quite finish the game he was a big reason we won.
 
Those of you who have been in touch with our season at all this year know that we’ve been absolutely infested with injury bugs. We can’t seem to get rid of them. They just keep popping up everywhere. All year long we’ve had guys playing hurt, guys playing out of position, guys playing positions they’ve never played before, and so on. I was proud of how we battled through that this week and came out at .500. For fun I decided to attach a photo of what our field positioning looked like during our last game of the week on Saturday.

This diagram shows each position on the field and is marked by what position the player who was at that spot started the season at. As you can see, it’s been a little crazy. But, guys are getting the job done. We’ve had guys step up and hit, step up and defend, and do it in places that they’re not comfortable with. There’s been days where the adversity has gotten us down this season, but I think we’ve done a good job of responding and not letting anything get us too down. It’s hard going through a season when nothing seems to be going the way you expected, but we’re trying to learn what we can from it and find a way to win every day. We’ve got a few weeks left of conference season and still have time to make a run at the tournament if we can get some things going.

Freshman Spotlight: Conner Thomas Tenhove

Make a case for yourself as being Freshman of the Year?

• “Dual sport athlete and I contribute to both sports. G-MAC freshman scoring record in basketball”

What sport do you like more: baseball or basketball?

• Whatever sport is currently in season. “Most fun part is playing games.”

What team do you like more: baseball or basketball?

• “I like both teams the same. They both bring different elements that I like and are definitely different from each other.”

Which team is better looking: baseball or basketball?

• Baseball

Which sport is harder: baseball or basketball? Josh Kneeland’s Top 10 Funniest Moments of His Career

#4 – One Voice
 

• A couple times a year the musical group One Voice leads us in worship during chapel. On one of these occasions during Josh’s sophomore year Josh decided he wanted in on the action. So, about five minutes before chapel started, Josh walked down on the stage and stood right besides the risers. “I was getting some weird looks and one person suggested I go to the other side, but I told them it was fine,” said Josh when I asked him to recall this event from his perspective. Josh made it through the entire worship session participating with the One Voice group on stage.

#3 – Silent Treatment
 

• Josh came back to school Junior year with a different hair style than normal. It was clear that Josh had highlighted his hair, and despite his adamant denial nobody on the team was buying what he was selling on this one. Josh has pretty dark hair, but his front tips were super blonde. Josh insisted that it was “from the sun,” but nobody was having it. After a week or so of comments Josh started getting a little fed up with the whole thing. One day Ross, being the kind, thoughtful guy he is, looked at Josh and said, “Yo Josh, what was the highlight of your summer?” Pretty funny…but Josh didn’t really like it. That was the last Ross heard from Josh until the following January. Josh completely ignored him for an entire semester. This wasn’t because he tried really hard to avoid him and be kind about it. No…Ross would be around and would even make efforts to talk to Josh, but Josh would just straight up ignore anything he said. I asked Josh if he remembered this. He said, “Marc, I didn’t even acknowledge his existence. And it was easy.”

April 5, 2018


Hey,
 
Team Update:
 
We’ve had a lot of games canceled and moved around. The weather has been kind of crazy. Also have added some new injuries to our collection. It’s been kind of a crazy year, guys.

But, we’re supposed to get our weekend series in this week which is good. We’re done with our out-of-division conference games and are moving into the division for the rest of the season.

 

Freshman Spotlight: Max Jackson Miller

Last time you cut your hair?

• Jackson

How are your knees feeling these days?

• Will for sure need knee replacements by 29

Who is your celebrity crush?

• Aunt Jemima

One way you live up to WV stereotype?

• I drink sweet tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Favorite cereal and why?

• “Cinnamon Toast Crunch b/c the taste brings me to flavor town”

 Alumni Update: Nate Bancroft



Nate Bancroft was one of a kind. He was a pitcher/outfielder converted outfielder only converted pitcher only. He had a good senior year as a weekend starter for us. Nate never lifted a day in his life until his senior year. He was also known for his receding hair line (must come with the name).

I caught up with Nate recently. He’s loving married life in New Hampshire with his “incredible wife.” It’s all good except for the blizzards that occur 3x/week. He’s currently working in outside sales with Oak Security and studying for his MBA. “Life is good and God is faithful.”

He did have a few words for the team. He told me to hit the gym, and wanted Ross to know that he has warned the NCAA that he’s potentially on banned substances b/c there’s no way he’s hit 4 home runs without them…. (he’s not).

 “Finally, I’d like to say enjoy the last month of the season! The camaraderie (or comradity if you’re RL) you have now is truly a blessing.”
  Josh Kneeland’s Top 10 Funniest Moments of His Career

#5 – Soft Toss 27

We have this one…I don’t even know what to call it….Thing we do in practice. It’s called soft toss 27. Basically what happens is you have a full defense out there, and hitters hit off of a soft toss at home plate and then the ball is played live from there. The defense has to get 27 outs in a row, without an error, in order to be done. This means that if there is an error you go all the way back to 0 and start over. I’m sure you can see how this might take quite a while sometimes.

The pitchers don’t usually have anything to do with this drill, but during one spring practice coach allowed the pitchers to hit during soft toss 27. I had the privilege of being the tosser for this, so I had a front row seat to the whole thing.

Josh came up and said he wanted it put right in his sweet spot, which for a soft toss was up in front of his left shoulder (right handed hitter). I’ll be honest – I put it right there, and Josh smacked it. Home run.

I need you guys to understand real quick how impressive that is. Driving the ball off of a soft toss is incredibly difficult, and our field is huge. I had never seen any of our hitters come very close to hitting one out like that before, and Josh just walked up and did it like it was nothing. Everyone was kind of just like, “did that really just happen???”

Well, imagine how we all felt when he did it again his next time up to bat. And then his third time up to bat. It was insane… so much so that the outfielders were getting upset and coach had to tell him to stop. He then hit a few doubles over their heads, and on his 6^th trip up to the plate I told him to hit one out again. He said “should I?” and I affirmed. He looked at Coach G for approval, and when he got the nod I tossed the ball in his “sweet spot” only for Josh to drive yet another ball out of the ballpark… this time on command. It was incredible.
 
Love you guys,

M. Russell

March 28, 2018

Hey,
 
It’s been a couple weeks! Here’s what we’ve got going on.
 

Team Update:

We’re currently in the midst of conference play. We haven’t any in division games yet, but so far we’re tied for 2^nd on our side of the conference. We’ve yet to have a home game, but we’re hopeful that we will get at least one in before the season is over.
 



In other news:

• Senior Colton Potter pulled off his 2nd all nighter of the year and 18th of his college career
• Jesse Bush hit two home runs (one of them was….assisted over the fence)
• Coach Bo still hasn’t had his kid yet
• Nate Robinson recently got called up to the big leagues and made his first start with the Phillies the other night in MLB the SHOW ’16
• Eli Sanchez has added 3 cm to his biceps since breaking his jaw
• Freshman Noah Schleinitz has 4 of the team’s 6 wins on the mound
• Bryce Hughes still thinks he can beat me at basketball
• Dr. Anthony Moore cannot cannot cannot hit a baseball
• Freshman Noah Bult had his first kiss! "We're proud of you, buddy!"

• “Drew Minnich. I like the way he stares at me without saying anything.” These two are roommates I think…. :/

• “My favorite thing about myself is how amazing I am at fantasy football. I’ve won the ship two out of the three years it’s been around.”

• Meat

• “That’s a great question”

• “Depends on her answer to this question. If she answers yes then I would say yes myself. If she says no then I would have to change my answer above.”

• “How I can beat Marc Russell one on one no matter the place, time or setting” (wrong)

• “Yes, with a hand tied behind my back” (this is so wrong. He’s good a lot of stuff, but he’s trash at basketball and I’d mop the floor with him.)

• “Probably the first time I beat my brother in soccer. Still brag about that to this day.”

• “Depends on the day, if we are playing fortnite on a squad then no, and normally bitter ties to follow. But when it comes to family relations and room chemistry I would say all is going swell”

• “I would have to say I’m better than Jessse Bush, but just a level below Ninja. But for those of you who don’t know what that means, yes I’m pretty amazing at it.”

• 3.6

• Tie b/w Thad and Marc

• “I was homeschooled from 4t-7th grade, so not really anyone during that time. I never really had one honestly, but if I have to choose looking back I would probably say Ms. Watson from 11th grade physics.”

• Temples

• Passed an anatomy quiz, and recently started dating Hayleigh 

• “Blue. It’s not plain but not too flashy either. A lot of good hues within blue.”

• “Not been arrested but I went to a high school football game with my cop uncle and watched him arrest a guy. So that was fun.”

• “Getting kicked out of group chats”

• “I never officially dated until my current girlfriend and I don’t see that ending. Also, I don’t have a favorite former girl. They are all incredibly subpar compared to my absolutely superb girlfriend.”

• “With one or two exceptions when I first started lifting with the team, I typically pick up more weights than I put down, or at least try to leave it better than I found it.”

• To the team: “Grind hard, till you see someone grind harder, then stop.” (This is a quote from Gandhi, made popular by Peter Martin, stolen by Sam Summerlin and ultimately used as a pre-game motivational phrase by Coach Manes. Most players now on the team probably won’t get this, but it’s value is unchanging.)
• To Jesse “OG” Bush: “Remember that Fortnite stats are more important than any achievements on the diamond. Keep your priorities straight.”

• Krave (???)

• “I would say I have my moments but all in all I’m not funny.

• No

• Guardians of the Galaxy, but likes any superhero movie

• “At lunch one time I was eating spaghetti at lunch and some it fell on my gray shirt and then after lunch I went to the bathroom and tried washing it off and I put water on the stain and it made the stain worse and now my shirt was all wet so it was more noticeable so then I had to go the rest of the day with my shirt like that.”

• This is not one specific event. Rather, it’s one that has happened 10, 20, 50, hundreds of times probably. The basic principle is that anytime someone is asked to stand and be recognized in chapel, Josh stands. So, when Dr. White asks the new freshmen to stand each Fall and be recognized, Josh stands. When he asks the sophomores to do the same thing right after, Josh stands. Juniors and seniors? Josh stands up. Every year, every time. When 4.0 students are asked to stand up Josh always joins the scattered 15 people who actually got a 4.0 for their round of applause. When we have prospective students and families who are asked to stand up and be welcomed, Josh stands. When Dr. White recognizes the trustees, Josh stands. When pastors are here for the pastor’s conference, he stands. He stands with the missionaries. He stands with the alumni. He stands with the veterans. He stands every time. And it’s funny every time.

• BRIEF weekly team update. Brief.
• Team feuds. We have a lot of these, and as games start happening we start having bus rides, which means even more feuds. We enjoy dissecting these afterwards and throwing as many people under the bus as possible. And then putting it on our blog.
• ** I have the unique role of mediating any arguments that break out on the bus, so I’ll have a good perspective on these.
• Freshman spotlight
• Random alumni updates – we’ll get to hear from some of campus’ most beloved and missed baseball alumni.
• One more thing I’ll announce later

• Nate Robinson will be making his second return to baseball. He missed all of last season with a torn UCL, and he’s really good, so we’re glad to have him back. He’ll be the starting pitcher in one of the games on Friday.

• Elliott Gilmore is also coming off of Tommy John surgery. He missed all of last season as well and is appearing in his first ever collegiate game this week. He’ll start the game on Friday that Nate doesn’t start in. We think he’s good, but we’ve never really seen him play, so hopefully it goes well.

• Eli Weldy (also known as Eliyahu Robbins) is coming back from TJ too. He’s reliable, and we missed him out of our bullpen last year. Hope to see him get an appearance this week.