Hi! I'm the New Guy...

Hello to all of the readers of the website FGCU Eagles Nest! My name is Cameron J. Kaiser, and I am a freshman at Florida Gulf Coast University. I am from Toledo, Ohio, so I am about 1,200 miles away from home.

I am an avid sports fan. I grew up in a household that revolved around baseball. I follow Major League Baseball religiously. I cheer adamantly for the Detroit Tigers, but also have a soft spot for the Chicago Cubs. However, baseball is not the only sport that I follow. I watch both college and professional football in the fall, and I cheer for the Michigan Wolverines and Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively. I'm not a huge NBA fan, but somehow find myself watching the Detroit Pistons every night in the winter. College basketball is my favorite sport next to Major League Baseball, and I'm sure you can guess the team that I cheer for (Dunk City hint hint).

Although I was never a very good baseball player, I stayed involved in my high school's baseball program for four years filling various management roles. This is not the first website that I have ever written for. In 2012 I started the Detroit Tigers blog T-Town Tiger, and am still writing it today. I have also written articles for the Toledo Free Press, and the baseball statistics website Fangraphs. I am a statistics nut. I will do everything I can to incorporate advanced metrics into my articles on here, whether it be about baseball or basketball. I don't have very much experience writing about basketball, but I can promise you I will be voicing my opinions loud and clear on the men's upcoming season.

With that being said, baseball is still my specialty. Once the 2015 baseball season rolls around you will be hearing a lot from me on the progression of the Eagles. I will do my best to keep you all updated on recruiting news along with some recaps of big games, but the majority of my work will be statistical analysis. As I stated previously, I am crazy for statistics. I have a vast understanding of advanced metrics in baseball. I will use my understanding to analyze the team and individual players throughout the season. I'm a big believer in sabermetrics, and I'm going to conduct my analysis in a way so that you, the reader, can understand the points I will try to make. I want you to learn more about the wonderful game of baseball as you read my work. It's a beautiful game, and it only gets better the more you understand about it.

I am looking forward to writing on this website, and I hope that you are excited to follow along! Go Eagles!

(Courtesy of Captive Photons)

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Eagles In The Classroom: NCAA Release GSR

Courtesy of Linwood Ferguson

Today the NCAA released its annual Graduation Success Rate (GSR) reports. This is the class that began college in 2006 and is calculated by students who graduated within six years. Headlining FGCU sports are Women's Soccer and Women's Tennis, both of whom had a 100% GSR rate. Here is FGCU's full list.

Men's Sports
Basketball: 53%
Baseball: 60%
Cross Country: 38%
Golf: 80%
Tennis: 73%

Women's Sports
Basketball: 40%
Cross Country: 56%
Golf: 83%
Soccer: 100%
Softball: 72%
Swim & Dive: 67%
Tennis: 100%
Volleyball: 89%

Overall, the Atlantic Sun conference had 26 perfect scores, including every Women's Tennis team (for the 2nd year in a row). Fifty-one A-Sun schools posted a score equal to or higher than the national average.

For more on FGCU make sure to follow us on Twitter (@FGCUEaglesNest)

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FGCU Fall Sports Update

Courtesy of Linwood Ferguson

Here the FGCU Eagles Nest brings you up to date in what has been in happening in all the FGCU fall sports. Enjoy.

Volleyball 3-10 (2-1)
The Eagles started off slow, losing their first five matches, but are now 2-1 in conference play, with wins over UNF and Kennesaw State. They will battle another conference foe, Mercer, tonight (Saturday Sept. 28th) at Alico. Both Karina Mambuca and Kaitlin Holm have been dishing out block parties while Christine Pinder will look to carry over her impressive kill performance from the KSU match.

Men's Soccer 1-5-1 (0-0-0)
Felipe DeSousa and the Eagles finished in dramatic fashion on Friday night, as he scored with only 57 seconds left in OT to give FGCU the win over Penn. The story was not the same against Seattle last weekend, as they lost 3-2 in OT against the Redhawks. FGCU will now take on Princeton on Sunday Sept. 29th at 4:00 p.m in one of their nationally televised matches (ESPNU).

Women's Soccer 6-3-1 (1-0-0)

Courtesy of Linwood Ferguson

Ally Kasun and Co. have been one of the most impressive FGCU programs this fall. They are still defending their A-Sun title, beating Jacksonville, their only conference opponent so far. They have been traveling quite a bit, flying all the way to Honolulu to take part in the University of Hawaii Outrigger Hotels & Resorts Classic. They left 2-0 with wins over Portland State and Idaho State. They take on UNF Sunday Sept. 30th, at the FGCU Soccer Complex.

Men's Tennis
The FGCU Men's Tennis team is currently opening their season at the Bedford Cup (Sept. 27-29) in Tallahassee.

Women's Tennis
The Women's Tennis team is opening their season at the UCF Invitational this weekend (Sept. 27-29)

Men's Golf
The Eagles, led by Blake Biggs (221), tied for 11th in the Golfweek Conference Challenge. Then, they tied for 8th in the Saint Mary's Invitational as Matt Cote sunk his first whole in one. Next, FGCU will travel to Atlanta to battle Kennesaw State (Oct. 21-22).

Women's Golf
They opened their season 3rd out of 4 at the Eat-A-Peach Invitational. Then, the Eagles hosted the Eagle Invitational in which Briana Carlson won the individual championship and FGCU tied for 1st with Barry University.

Swim & Dive
After the Blue/Green Scrimmage, the FGCU Swim/Dive team headed to Gainesville this weekend (Sept. 27-29) to compete in the All-Florida Invitational.

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Dunks Of The Day (7/26/13): Women's Swim, Dooley Camp Part II, Elliott Cole Mix Up

Women's Swim Making A Splash
       The FGCU Women's swim team is making a splash this summer. They are finishing off a phenomenal recruiting class (Nina Schiffer, Kira Toussaint) and have three swimmers at the FINA World Chamipionships in Barcelona (Lani Cabrera, Evita Leter, Karen Vilorio). News Press Story.

Joe Dooley Camp
    The second session of Joe Dooley basketball camp is upcoming (August 5th-7th). The first was a major success; there were record turnouts and the players and campers enjoyed themselves. Brochure here.

Elliott Cole Mix Up
     Due to Twitter confusion last night, people were led to believe that 2013 guard Elliot Cole (Ford Power House Academy) had committed to FGCU as a walk on. In reality, Cole committed to Gulf Coast State University, which is located in Panama City.

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Dunks Of the Day: APR, Joe Dooley Camp

Academic Progress Rates
       The NCAA released Academic Progress Rates yesterday and FGCU passed in all 14 sports. These are all four year average numbers out of 1000. A minimum of 900 is required to avoid penalties.

Men's Basketball: 938
Baseball: 958
Men's Cross Country: 931
Men's Golf: 955
Men's Soccer: 966
Men's Tennis: 976
Softball: 976
Women's Basketball: 960
Women's Cross Country: 973
Women's Golf: 1000
Women's Soccer: 971
Women's Swim/Dive: 990
Women's Tennis: 980
Women's Volleyball: 960


Joe Dooley Camp
       FGCU is currently holding a Joe Dooley Basketball Camp at Alico Arena for boys grade 3-12. Brett Comer and the rest of the crew are teaching kids skills to improve their game. "Maybe we'll luck out and one or two of them will be good enough to play for us," Dooley said. (via http://www.naplesnews.com/videos/detail/fgcu-youth-basketball-camp/) Sherwood Brown is also back on campus to assist at Alico. While this ends tomorrow on the 13th, FGCU will also be hosting a Dunk City Team Camp from June 14th-16th.

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Off-Season Guide 1: Women's Soccer

The Eagles, led by Shannen Wacker, ended the season with a 14-4-3 record and a lone conference loss to UNF (7-1-1 conference record) to earn a A-Sun Regular Season Championship for the 3rd year in a row. After earning the #1 seed in the A-Sun Tournament, FGCU beat #5 Jacksonville en route to scraping by #2 Mercer in the finals, 1-0 (OT). The Eagles had to travel to Gainesville to take on the Gators in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. UF scored in the 22nd minute and then again in 77th to capture a 2-0 victory.

Photo Courtesy of Jim Dostie

FGCU will be losing seniors Jessica Swartzentruber, Danielle Faller, Jennifer Crittenberger, Julia Martin, and Ashely Ciesielczyk. They all certainly left their mark on FGCU soccer. Crittenberger is fifth all time in minutes (5853) and games started (64) in FGCU history. Faller has a constant motor that led her to start all 78 games in her career. Ciesielczyk is first on the all time FGCU list for assists with 28. Swartzentruber returned from an injury to play her last game at FGCU in the NCAA tournament against UF. Martin had a key assist in the A-Sun semi-finals to lead their team to victory. 

Post-Season accolades are not a rare occurrence for FGCU. This year, Jim Blankenship was named A-Sun Coach of the Year and Ashely Ciesielczyk earned the A-Sun defensive player of the year. Shannen Wacker, Ally Kasun joined Ciesielczyk on the All Conference First Team and Danielle Faller, Jennifer Crittenberger, Emma Blackwell, and Shea Rhoney earned A-Sun Second Team honors.

It will be hard to replace all the great talent and personalities these seniors had but Jim Blankenship did a phenomenal job bringing in great young talent. Lauren Knight, Ashely Parks, Paulina Speckmaler (transfer), Tabitha Tindell, and Yazmin Velez all signed NLIs to FGCU. 

FGCU Soccer contributed to the Eagles being named A-Sun Women's All Sport Champions.

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Weekend Recap

Photo by Linwood Ferguson

         It was another great couple of days for FGCU sports. Baseball had an exciting weekend with back to back walk offs Friday and Saturday to win the series despite losing on Sunday. Through multiple rain delays softball took both games of the double header on Saturday and similar to baseball dropped the 3rd game of the series on Sunday. Sand Volleyball beat Mercer (3-2) before falling to UNF (4-1) at the A-Sun Championship. Men's Tennis beat USC Upstate 4-2 and then lost UNF 4-0. Women's Tennis lost to Stetson 4-3 in the A-Sun Quarterfinals. In the first round of the A-Sun Championship, Men's Golf shot a 313(+25) with sophomore Jack Hernadez at +2 tied for 7th. Paintball beat Cal State Long Beach to win the NCPA National Championship. A lot going on and another great weekend to be an Eagle.

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