Each Monday throughout the season, one of our 2024 seniors will give fans a view through their eyes as they recap the previous week. On tap this week is outfielder Bailey Welch.

Hi, Jag Nation! My name is Bailey Welch, a senior outfielder from Hueytown, Ala. A few facts about me is that I am majoring in biomedical sciences in hopes of pursuing a career as a physician assistant. I am also engaged and am getting married this September. Take a look at my life as a student-athlete on spring break this week!  

Monday
During the season, Monday is always our off day and since we are on spring break it was an off day from school too! I took full advantage of today and started it off by sleeping in and letting my body recover from the previous weekend. I spent some quiet time with the Lord to jump start my week. I then had a few errands to run to get ready for the weekend ahead, so of course that included a trip to Target. I spent the rest of my night enjoying fellowship and worship at discipleship night for athletes at South. All in all, Monday was my rest and reset day, and I am very thankful for days like that. 

Tuesday 
I had a slow morning this morning, which I also love. I spent some time with the Lord and then I started to clean up the house a little bit before we travel. I ate lunch – my typical burrito bowl from Costco – before my massage at the field before practice. After my massage, I went home to clean up and then went to the field for practice. When we got to practice, we had a lighter day in the cages. We just wanted to get some quality swings in and continue to recover from the previous weekend. After hitting, I went to our lift where we got super-strong and super-fast for the weekend ahead. Me and my fiancé, Austin Thrasher, went to See-Wee Roll for dinner because it is an all you can eat type of restaurant, so there's no need for any more explanation there ;) I ended the night going to a prayer night with the softball and baseball team. This was a really special moment for both teams, and I am thankful for moments like those. 

Wednesday
Today was our travel day to Fayetteville, Ark. We started our trip with a 9 a.m. departure time. We stopped in Mississippi to eat Chick-Fil-A for lunch and continued our trip. This was a really long bus trip for us, so we spent it watching television shows, sleeping as much as we could, playing Fortnite, and singing songs and playing bus games together. We stopped in Conway, Ark., for dinner and enjoyed each other's company before hopping back on the bus for our last stretch to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel, we all went to our rooms to get some sleep for the weekend ahead. 

Thursday 
It was our practice day today, so we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel. My breakfast all throughout the weekend was oatmeal and turkey sausage. I'm a creature of habit, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it! We went to the field for practice, but it was raining, so we could only practice in the indoor facility today. Even though we couldn't get on the field, we still got some quality work in. We went to Cava for lunch.  Cava is a favorite of mine, so I was very happy. After lunch, we went to get a lift in at Arkansas' weight room. We got a quick and efficient lift in to get us ready for our upcoming games. We went back to the hotel for a few hours before going to Dave and Buster's for dinner. This was so much fun! We got to play games and compete against each other in all sorts of games. My favorite was the Mario Kart game, I really got into that one :)) We ended the night looking and shopping at the different stores around the area. I topped my night off with some frozen yogurt; a perfect end to the night if you ask me! 

Friday 
We had a doubleheader today, so we woke up bright and early and headed to the field for our warm up. We had a game against the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) and then against the University of Arkansas. We came up short against UNI, but then bounced back to get the win against Arkansas later that night. This was a huge step for us to be able to turn it around and play a quality team and pull out the win. We ended the night with some yummy barbecue from a local restaurant and resting up for the next day. 

Saturday 
We had another day of doubleheaders today. We played University of Nebraska and then University of Arkansas again. We woke up, ate some breakfast, and then went to the field to prepare for our games. Unfortunately, we could not come up with a win in either game today. We needed to lock back into our process and continue to work together. We knew that these losses needed to propel us forward to the next day. Our night ended pretty late and we knew that we were losing an hour of sleep (because of the time change), so we went back to the hotel and ate some dinner in our rooms. We ended the night packing up for our flight back tomorrow and getting as much rest as we could. 

Sunday 
We had the first game this morning, so we had a very early morning. We woke up, ate a quick bite for breakfast and loaded the bus. We went to the field to prepare for our game against St. Francis. We had some quality pitching and some timely hits to get us the win before heading back home. This weekend did not go the way we expected to say the least, but we know what we have to work on this upcoming week to get back to where we need to be. We have our first conference series against Louisiana this upcoming weekend, so this weekend is a huge weekend for us as a team. We are excited about conference play and very confident in our ability to compete at a very high level for the rest of the season. 

Thank you, Jag Nation, for following along with me on my week as a student-athlete. I hope you were able to get a little more insight on what a week in my life looks like. Come out and support us this weekend on our conference opener weekend! Thank you for all your support. As always, GO JAGS!!

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