Aggies in Omaha and ready to "take it all in"
OMAHA, Nebraska (KBTX) - The festivities in Omaha have begun with open practices and press conferences for all eight teams at the Men’s College World Series on Thursday.
Texas A&M is the last opening-round game when they take on Florida at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.
The Maroon and White filed off the team bus around 1:45 p.m. Thursday to take a team picture in front of Charles Schwab Field. After greeting fans, signing autographs, and taking pictures, the Aggies made their way to an open practice.
Two years ago the Aggies made it to the semifinals in Omaha, which is the furthest the team has ever gone. There are a lot of new faces this time around, and they’re excited to be here and hopefully make an even deeper run.
”The first few days, take it all in, enjoy every moment,” said Freshman infielder Gavin Grahovac. “Take pictures, go on your phone, whatever it is. But when it’s time to step on those lines, you’ve got to come ready to play and that’s what we plan on doing,” Grahovac added.
“It’s really easy to come here and think that you’re on a business trip and tune out all the cool stuff,” explained Sophomore pitcher Ryan Prager. “Take that in, enjoy it, but also know the balance of when to be a player and when to be a fan. I think we’ve done a great job so far, and we’ll continue to do that hopefully for the next week and a half,” Prager added.
“I kind of took today in and it was pretty surreal,” Sophomore outfielder Jace LaViolette exclaimed. “It was my first time ever being here. It was a really cool moment. Obviously it’s really cool to be here, but you’ve just got to treat it like we treated opening day. We have to realize that we got here because we have a standard. We got here because we have things that we believe in. We can’t start going away from those things because we’re on a bigger stage or a bigger field or you perceive it to be bigger,” LaViolette added.
This is the second trip to the Men’s College World Series in head coach Jim Schlossnagle’s three-year tenure. He’s hoping to capture his first championship and the team’s first as well.
Copyright 2024 KBTX. All rights reserved.
