Championship Summer

This summer, John Birkbeck and Tommy Monnot won a championship with the Keene Swamp Bats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.  They took the time to answer a few questions on the experience:

What was it like winning a summer league championship?

Tommy Monnot: It was pretty fun.  It wasn’t as good as a Kent State one because we didn’t know everybody; we weren’t with each other as long.  But it was still fun.  It was good meeting a bunch of guys and doing well with them. 

John Birkbeck: It was exciting to get to win a championship with a new group of guys.  We weren’t as close to them as we are with the guys at Kent, but it was still great to put that much time in and spend a summer away from home and get to win a championship.

What was the difference in winning this championship compared to winning one at Kent State?

JB: Winning one here, it’s a huge process because you were together for eight months at a time preparing for it, whereas this was a snapshot of what we do here.  It was two months, we didn’t practice… it was kind of just a show-and-go all the time.  It was kind of like high school and little league: you just play baseball and have fun.

TM: We are expected to win them here, because we always have a good team every year.  Up there, we didn’t really know what we had.  We started out a little rough and came out and started winning ball games, and we ended up coming out with a ring.

After falling short in the Mid-American Conference Tournament last season, what kind of motivation does winning a championship with the Swamp Bats give you to go out and continue winning them at Kent State?

JB: A lot.

TM: Yeah, I’m hoping we can rebuild off that and I can carry on where I was going in the playoffs for that season onto the Kent State season.