Jan. 26, 2004
Hilo, Hawai'i
Day 3 - Saturday, Jan. 24
Our last day in Hawaii began about the same as all of the others. We had breakfast, packed up our bags, and got on the bus to go to the field. Today was the warmest day of the trip, and even at 10:00 in the morning, the heat was pretty brutal. It took like 10 minutes for our team to pass around the one bottle of sunscreen that our trainer thankfully had in his kit. While we were hitting batting practice, one of those gigantic cruise ships pulled into the bay below the field and stayed anchored there while we played. I had never seen a ship like that in person, and it was a very impressive site and made all of the other boats look tiny.
Thankfully, we ended our series on a high note, winning our final game 6-2. We got an outstanding combined pitching performance from Daryl Harang, J.T. Zink, and Ryan Schroyer, and our offense finally came alive late and scored 4 runs in the top of the 10th inning. Jake McLintock knocked in the go-ahead run with a single, and Kurt Mendoza put the nail in the coffin with a 3-run bomb over the right field fence.
After the game, we bussed over to a nearby high school to shower and change our clothes. Unfortunately, the locker room had no hot water, so the showers were a little icy. To be honest though, I was so sunburned and hot after three long days out in the sun that I didn't mind the cold water. Next, we drove to the tiny Kona Airport where we waited for an hour and a half to fly to Honolulu. Most of us either did some homework, played cards, or watched movies while we waited. We've got about a 2-hour layover in Honolulu where I'll probably do some last minute homework. From Honolulu, we're flying all night to Los Angeles where we land at about 5:30 in the morning. Then we've got to fight the morning traffic in a bus back to San Diego. Once we get back to SDSU, we'll be heading straight to our classes with out a break or rest. I really hope we make it back in time to turn in a paper that I just wrote for my 9:30 class.
All in all, we had a decent trip to Hawaii. We lived through an epic rainstorm, a couple of flash-flood warnings, the heat and humidity, and an unbelievable amount of rice (I'm pretty sure I'll be staying away from that stuff for a long, long time). We didn't win as many games as we would have liked, but hopefully now that we've got a few games under our belts, we'll pick things up and have a great season.
Aloha from Hawaii.