This week the Deacs are in Salem, Virginia, for the ACC Tournament.  We are looking to rebound from an absolutely brutal finish to our regular season.  We went 5-7 in the last two weeks of the season and to make things worse we spent 10 days off for finals.  (Finals were the main reason I haven’t written a journal in a while.  I wrote six papers and had five tests in that 10-day span.  Most of it was spent cramming and by the end of the two weeks I had more Papa John’s pizza boxes stacked in my room than I did books.)

We got to Salem on Monday and our first event was the pre-tournament banquet.  All of the teams gather for this event for dinner and ceremonies.  It gives us a chance to catch up with our friends on the other teams and a few guys on our team tried to add up the combined worth of the talent in the room. They eventually just gave up because the number got to high.

On Tuesday we had the 10 a.m. practice.  Each team at the tournament gets 45 minutes on the field to get accustomed to the conditions.  The stadium is the second nicest that we have played on all year, next to the Metrodome.

After practice we sat around the hotel, playing endless hours of video games and cards.  Finally at 6 we went to Fuddruckers and stuffed ourselves with hamburgers and shakes.  Our freshman catcher, Steve Malinowski, was the only guy that was able to eat the Fuddrucker’s famous full pound burger.  On top of that he had an order of fries and a chocolate shake and we had to roll him out of the restaurant. 

After Fuddrucker’s we went to the first few innings of the Duke and Maryland game.  Duke won and earned themselves a spot in the double elimination tournament.  Unfortunately, that is the only game that has been played because all of the games today were rained out. 

We spent all day in the hotel waiting to see if the rain would subside so we could play, but it didn’t and we only got to hit in the stadium’s indoor cages and lift at the local high school. 

The weather looks even gloomier for tomorrow so we are anticipating a long day of waiting and sitting around the hotel again.  We are just going to keep playing video games and cards until we get the call to go play because here isn’t a whole lot else to do around here.  We are scheduled to play Georgia Tech at 5, but we’ll see if the rain can hold off long enough to get the game in.

Ryan Johnson

(photo courtesy of WFU Media Relations Office)