Canespace: April 2021

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

The Few, The U, The Air Force

It was a conversation Marshall Few knew he had to have.

What the receiver didn’t know was how his message would be received. After all, not many coaches want to hear a veteran player say they’re stepping away from the game – even if their reason for doing so is to pursue a lifelong dream.

“To be honest, I was expecting a little bit different reaction,” Few said of the heart-to-heart he had with head coach Manny Diaz in early April. “I was expecting him to be upset and be like ‘Oh, man, are you sure?’ But he realized how big it was for me and he just said, ‘Dude, that’s freaking awesome.’”

For Few – a former walk-on who was put on scholarship shortly after Diaz was named coach – there aren’t very many good reasons to walk away from the game he’s loved all his life and the team he’s been a part of for four years.

The opportunity to join the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command program, though, is one of those reasons.

Becoming an elite Airman has been one of Few’s goals for as long as he can remember. His father, Marshall Sr., is a 30-year Army veteran and Few grew up with a deep respect and appreciation for the military.

He considered attending one of the service academies after graduating from Ponte Vedra High School in 2017, but he landed at Miami, where he joined both the football team and UM’s Air Force ROTC program.

With help from his coaches and his commander, Few has been able to balance the demands of both playing high-level college football with his ROTC responsibilities. He is set to graduate next month as an Air Force officer and had expected to start graduate school and play one more season with the Hurricanes before truly beginning his military career.

But in March, Few took some time away from football to attend a special training session at Hurlburt Field, the home of Air Force Special Operations Command near Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

There, Few was one of 31 aspiring officers who went through a demanding one-week program that challenged participants both physically and mentally.

Of the 31 trainees who started the Phase II program, only 18 finished the week, which included everything from water confidence exercises to IQ testing and psychiatric evaluations. Only a handful of the applicants were selected for the special tactics officer program.

Few was among them. The time to start his military career had officially arrived.

Get Out Your Brooms!

Walk-off wins are always fun, but even better when they clinch a series sweep.

Sunday’s hero was Tony Jenkins, delivering the game-winning RBI in the bottom of the ninth to push the Canes past Clemson, 3-2, before a sold-out crowd of 620 fans inside Alex Rodriguez Park.

“Getting sweeps is not easy,” head coach Gino DiMare said. “We’ve had it done to us a few times and we need to obviously run some off ourselves here to make up [for it], but more importantly, just play good baseball. The last two games were obviously a little bit different where we opened the games up and had much bigger margins. Winning one-run games, those are very, very important. Those are going to be more the type of games you’re going to play later on in tournament time, so it was good to see.”

After a pair of lopsided losses in the first two games, the Tigers had built some momentum against the Canes by tying the game against Miami’s closer, Carson Palmquist. But Miami got some timely hitting to earn its second walk-off win of the week.

CJ Kayfus, who entered the game as a pinch runner in the bottom of the sixth, led off the ninth with a base hit up the middle. Two batters later, Dominic Pitelli ripped a double to right that put runners on second and third with one out, setting the stage for Jenkins to be a hero.

“It was just great to be in that position and that situation at the time and an even better feeling to get that done for the team,” Jenkins said. “I’ve just got to stay ready whenever my name gets called and I felt like I did that today. It felt really great celebrating with the guys. Everyone seemed very proud of me and I’m just thankful for my team.”

The fourth-year outfielder, which entered the game as a defensive replacement in the top of the seventh, lifted the first pitch he saw from Clemson closer Geoffrey Gilbert deep to center field, allowing Kayfus to tag up and score the winning run and set off a raucous celebration on Mark Light Field.

“I was so proud of him just being aggressive there,” DiMare said. “Come up first pitch, got a pitch he can drive to the outfield. He hasn’t done a very good job of being aggressive and in that situation, you’ve got to be aggressive, and he got a good pitch to drive.”

The victory was Miami’s eighth home win in a row over the Tigers. It also marked Miami’s second consecutive sweep of Clemson in Coral Gables and its fifth straight series win over the Tigers.

While it was a sacrifice fly that clinch the win, Miami got a major boost from the home run all weekend. Seven different players combined for nine homers against Clemson this weekend, with Yohandy Morales getting the bats going for the Hurricanes in the bottom of the first when he hit an opposite-field homer for the second consecutive day. The true freshman’s solo blast extended Miami’s home run streak to nine straight games dating back to April 4.

Posted at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)