May 2, 2006

In the final installment of On The Road for 2006, freshman outfielder Mollie Schrank kept a journal for the Flyers' final road trip to Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Thursday, April 27
Final road trip of the year, it went by so fast! We were scheduled to leave campus at 8 a.m. but due to some minor setbacks we ended up leaving around 8:30. It was a very eventful morning to say the least. We got to the Columbus airport around 9:30 and got everything checked in. Once again, it was still pretty cool walking through the airport in our matching warm-ups. We looked important. Shoot, we are important! Our flight didn't leave until 12:15 so we all just hung out, talked and ate...the usual. We flew Southwest and we flew first to Baltimore and the flight had a lot of turbulence, I think at least half of us felt pretty sick afterwards. In Baltimore we had about a half hour layover, it was a nice airport though. We then flew into Connecticut. From there we took a bus to our hotel in Massachusetts, it was only about a 45 minute drive, not to bad at all. So today alone I've been in four state, kind of cool right? For dinner we went to Cracker Barrel. It was real good. Then after dinner we came back to the hotel and had a long team meeting about some issues that needed discussed, then watched the O.C and went to bed. Tomorrow we play UMass.

Friday April 28-2006
We woke up around 8:45 today and went down to get some breakfast. By we, I mean [Erin LaFayette], [Sheena Rothwell], [Ellie Malchow] and I, my sweet roommates for UMass! After we ate breakfast we all came back up to the room with the intentions to study, as finals are in a few days. I think Sheena was the only successful one. I lasted the shortest time before falling back asleep and Ellie and Erin soon joined me. We woke up for the second time around 11 and ate our lunch, which we had delivered. We left for the game at 12:15 it took about 45 minutes to get to the field. We played UMass at 3 and 5. We lost both; they are in first in the conference right now. After the games we ate at Applebee's and then got back to the hotel around 9:45. We finally played the much talked about "Freshman games" on the bus right back. I wasn't very good at them. Curfew was 11 but Sheena, Ellie, Erin, and I all just came back up to the room watched TV and talked the rest of the night. Oh yea, we also plotted our revenge again Chrissy [Schneider]! Haha! Time for bed though, we're heading to Rhode Island tomorrow!

Saturday April 29-2006
We left our hotel in Massachusetts at 9:30 to drive to Rhode Island. We stopped around 11:30 for lunch at Chucky Cheese. Yes, I thought it was a joke myself but this is serious! And of course we got tokens! We won 2200 tickets as a team, I'm pretty sure all the little kids were jealous. We decided to get an oversized kickball and some cotton candy. As you can probably imagine, the kickball was used to throw at people on the bus and was deflated for the plane ride home. After lunch we went to Dayton's baseball game at Rhode Island. It was a lot of fun but unfortunately they lost a heart breaker in the bottom of the ninth to a walk-off homerun with two outs. I might say though, I am an excellent foul ball chaser. We then drove through Newport, RI and looked at all the huge mansions and drove to the coast. It was absolutely gorgeous. We got to our hotel around 4:45. I studied a little until dinner at 6. Dinner was real good. Afterwards most of the girls just tried to study some until bed. Merry Christmas Coach E!

Sunday April 30-2006
We departed Motel 6 at approximately 8:10...and then made a pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. We played Rhode Island at 11 and 1. We lost the first but then came back to win the second 6-0. After the games we headed to the airport. Out flight left around 5:30 for Baltimore. We landed around 6:45 and weren't scheduled to leave until 10:00! Most of us planned to get dinner and study but instead we got dinner and had another long discussion. Basically, I've not gotten much studying done and all and I'm worried about my finals! Why do finals have to count towards your grade? So I'm sitting on the plane headed to Columbus right now. I'm sitting by Sheena and Mags [Maggie Stopka], it's a good time. I'm pretty much just staring out the window looking at all the lights and they're looking at a magazine. Seriously though, isn't it crazy that a huge plane which weighs over a ton can fly, but we can't. Think about it...It's going to be a late night. Yay for one week of school left!