For many baseball players, the month of December is used for rest and recovery. St. Petersburg College's Travis Owens opted to spend the winter participating in the Southeast Asia games. Earlier this week, Owens had the chance to reflect on his experience overseas. 

Owens-originally from Shanghai but with Thai roots thanks to his mother- reports that he had an overwhelmingly positive experience both on and off the field. He was sent to the mound twice during the tournament with an overall stat line of 10 innings pitched with 12 strikeouts all while scattering 3 total hits. Most impressively, Owens surrendered only a single earned run in his two outings.

According to Owens, the tournament allowed him to be "a lot closer to my Thai culture. Spending the majority of my time with native Thai people also forced me to improve my ability to speak the language". His parents and family are said to have reveled in his competition as well, rooting him on from Far East locations such as Thailand and Tokyo.

With Team Thailand achieving a 3-2 record on the tournament, Owens and the rest of his compatriots fell short of the gold medal. It matters not to Owens, who contends that "the experience was surreal as I was finally able to connect two major aspects of my life". Travis Owens and the rest of the Titans baseball team now look to Jan.31^st for their first game of the 2020 season.