{"id":6698,"date":"2021-05-04T09:48:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T13:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6698"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:42:08","slug":"return-to-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2021\/05\/04\/return-to-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Return to Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who\u2019s ready for some UMPI baseball? Yes, the UMPI owls will be playing their spring sports this year and this includes UMPI\u2019s baseball team. UMPI baseball has been waiting a long time to return to action and play games.\u00a0 UMPI\u2019s baseball team was turned around on its way to Florida last year and it left a sour taste in everyone’s mouths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The pandemic has changed sports for the time being. When athletes play now they have to wear masks on the field or the court or wherever they play their prospective sports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

UMPI Owls at Practice.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The spring athletes are very excited to turn to play. Among those excited this season are baseball players Roberto De La Pena and William Stinson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0William said, \u201cI\u2019m very excited to be able to go out and play for my last year. Team looks good overall. I\u2019m hoping that the work put in, in the off season will show. I think we are all ready for the season considering the amount of obstacles we\u2019ve had to overcome with COVID.\u201d William has played for UMPI all four seasons on the baseball team and is chomping at the bit to get going so that he can play one last season with his father, Coach Roger Stinson, at the helm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Another senior coming back for a fifth season is Roberto De La Pena. He is commonly known on the team as \u201cthe Grandfather.\u201d He earned this nickname because he is the oldest player on the UMPI baseball roster. Roberto said, \u201cMy excitement for this season has been a long wait! This is my last year and I worked very hard to get here.\u201d Roberto comes all the way from California. He\u2019s had to sacrifice a lot to come back a fifth year so that he can play his senior year of college baseball here at UMPI.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The baseball team members are very excited to be free of this COVID mess, even if it\u2019s only seven innings at a time. Not to mention they all get to play together again, which everyone is very happy to do. Roberto also said, \u201cThe team looks good. We are young and need to work on some things, but I believe we should be good. I\u2019m ready for the season.\u00a0 I\u2019ve dealt with a lot in the last year, and I\u2019m ready to finish as an UMPI Owl.\u201d Both of these players have been nothing but loyal to UMPI and live by that loyalty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Speaking of loyalty, Coach Roger Stinson has also been here for quite some time. Coach Stinson said, \u201cThere are many words a person could use for the excitement level that I have for this season.\u00a0 But I truly think the best word to use is thankful…. This has been a long time coming.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Coach Stinson mentioned how proud he is of the players for going through the COVID protocols and not letting it get to them.\u00a0 He is thrilled to rack up a few wins and show the UMPI community that the team is headed in the right direction. He thinks the freshmen need to work their way through the nerves of playing college baseball. Once they get through that, things will be looking up for the Owls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who\u2019s ready for some UMPI baseball? Yes, the UMPI owls will be playing their spring sports this year and this includes UMPI\u2019s baseball team. UMPI baseball has been waiting a long time to return to action and play games.\u00a0 UMPI\u2019s baseball team was turned around on its way to Florida last year and it left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8253,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6698\/revisions\/8253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}