Each week throughout the season, senior desginated hitter Aaron Cook will supply a blog for Fighting Sioux fans on the ins and outs of the UND baseball program. Cook's blog will also appear on www.pingbaseball.com as he is one of a several Division I baseball players supplying blogs for the collegiate baseball site.

Cook burst onto the scene last season for the Sioux as a redshirt junior, batting .328 with six home runs and 28 RBI.  All three of those totals ranked second on the team. The Erskine, Minn., native had just three at-bats in his UND career entering the program's first as a Division I member.

Volume 2: Bring on the bus trips

When I first stepped on the bus to travel down to Wichita, I couldn't really believe that it was this time of the year again. The past year simply flew by, it had felt like we just got back from Northern Iowa. It is the start of a new season and we are ready for it.

After the twelve hour trip down to Wichita, we were able to get a practice in. It was nice to get outside to see some fly balls and how the ball flew off the bat. We then when back to the hotel and settled down for awhile before enjoying a nice meal at Old Chicago. We were all anxious for the next day, so we turned in pretty early. Everyone was ready to get out and play the 24th-ranked team in the country.

In front of a crowd of just under 3,000, the first game of the year started out promising as Derek Biermaier was throwing a great game. The bats were struggling a bit to come around, but we were still in the game.

After the fifth inning Wichita State led 4-1. Things didn't go so well from there. Wichita really started to hit the ball and put some runs on the board and we were unable to answer. What started as a promising game turned south in a hurry.

We had to put game one behind us and get ready for the final game of the series. Sam Anderson was on the mound for us. After giving up three runs in the first two innings, Sammy through lights out. He had their guys off balance and was getting a lot of ground balls. Unfortunately, the bats had still not come around.

We had no hits through the first five innings, but Josh Lagein singled to start the sixth. The bats continued to struggle as we only managed five hits for the game. Heading into the ninth we trailed 5-0. We rallied a bit to put up two runs on the board, but that is were the rally ended.

The facilities at Wichita were absolutely amazing. The stadium held 8,000 people, it was a brand new turf field, each team had a clubhouse, and there were jaw-dropping press boxes. After the series, we were treated to a great meal in the “All-American Club”. This was the highest press box in the stadium. The view from up there was amazing. This could very well be the best place we play at all year.

We are now embarking on our twelve hour journey back to Grand Forks. We will work on a few things practice this week as we get ready for Southeast Missouri State, which is the start of our spring break trip.