On the Road with the Huskies: Zach’s NCAA Tourney Blog, Final Day

The St. Cloud State baseball team is back in the NCAA Central Region Tournament, which means the regional blog series is also back! My name is Zach Siggelkow and I will be providing SCSU baseball fans with an inside look of our trip in Arkansas. The Huskies' final game was on Saturday, May 20th and they fell to Southern Arkansas by a score of 11-5.

First and foremost, I want to say thank you on the behalf of our entire program to all of the families and supporters throughout this season. Adversity with injuries, weather and traveling seemed to always be facing us but with your continued support and help along the way, we made this season something special. Our senior class of Jackson Goplen, Bo Schmitz, Isaac Matchinsky and Logan Sandgren were essential pieces in this season's success both on and off the field, they will be missed!

Now, if you have not heard already... our travel day out of Arkansas may have been an even more twisted experience than our travels on day one. Again, we were split up to fly out of Little Rock, but this time we were only split into three groups. The first group of Huskies flew into Dallas, then arrived in Minneapolis in a fairly smooth process. Our second group went to Chicago, where they were delayed for two hours before eventually landing in Minneapolis. The third group, which I was apart of along with Logan Sandgren, Ryan Wesely, Bo Schmitz, Matthew Osterberg, Doc Swendra and Andy Sailer... well we had an interesting 24 hours. We were initially scheduled to fly into Houston, then catch a connecting flight to Minneapolis and eventually arrive in St. Cloud around 11:00 PM on Sunday. Instead, we boarded our original flight about 45 minutes late, then were forced to deplane due to weather conditions. Within a span of 10 minutes, we had successfully boarded, greeted our seat mates (strangers), said our farewell's and returned to the concourse.

We used this opportunity to survey our options and decided if we wanted to catch a flight and split into even smaller groups, or potentially drive to another airport to try and fly out on one of their connecting flights. After running through more scenarios, we decided to take a break and explore the Little Rock airport once again. In our adventure, we were lucky enough to run into Twins' legend, seven-time gold glove award winner and just an overall great guy, Torii Hunter. Rhino spotted him out from afar and we chatted with him about his time growing up in Arkansas as well as our travel arrangements. As a consolation for the travel planning, he took a picture with us. Thanks again for the picture, and for listening to our rant about the flight situation, Torii.

After this peaking moment of our trip, we found out our flight was delayed until 9:45 PM so we booked a hotel in Houston and snuck in a quick nap.

Upon our arrival to Houston, we soon found out that checked luggage was nowhere to be seen. Without panicking, we decided it was time for a meal and a decent night's sleep after spending roughly 14 hours traveling throughout the South. We checked into the hotel and at this point it's late.. it's 12:30 AM late and Bo is getting hangry. (hungry + angry = hangry)

We made a stop at Whataburger with our hotel shuttle driver and he decided he did not want to take us through the drive-thru so we were left to either live off of the land, or make a friend. We quickly made a friend in upcoming musician, and now Huskies baseball super fan, Zamar Yauw. Now this was a sketchy moment for Zamar because I approached his car in the drive-thru and gave him the low-down that we needed a car in order to be fed for the night. After further explaining the circumstances, he agreed to go with the flow and help the boys eat. After ordering, he showed us some of his music that will be released on Spotfify within the next couple of weeks and boy were we in for a treat. The night cap of meeting a new friend along with some quality music helped our group get back to the hotel in good graces.

SHOUT OUTS TO ( ST. CLOUD STATE )Its Always Great meeting new people especially when it's a group of awesome baseball players from MINNESOTA!! Glad I could help you guys. "Sometimes life may throw you a (Curve Ball) but you just have to keep your mind on the game and endure until the end. Wish you the best guys! STAY in Touch and STAY #SUNNY MY FRIENDS #YAUW!!!!!?????????? ????#latenight #baseball #minnesota #influence #whataburger #roughnight #positive #yauw #zamar @zachsigg10 @topshelfmichael @itsboyo_14 @andysailer @ryan_wesely

A post shared by ZAMAR YAUW (@zamaryauw) on May 20, 2018 at 11:20pm PDT

We eventually found our bags, landed in Minneapolis and bussed to St. Cloud on Monday afternoon. We are glad to be home with all of our luggage and memories that will last a lifetime.

We agreed that this was the only suitable finish in traveling arrangements related to weather in this season. It was a good one for the 2018 St. Cloud State "Road Warriors" - Thanks again for following along all week and be sure to stay updated on all things Huskies' related at scsuhuskies.com.