Unityball was born on a snowy night five years ago on a near-deserted concourse at Newark International Airport. Demoralized after a loss at Fairfield, Larranaga and his players waited for a promised flight — the only plane that was supposed to leave that night.

“We were miserable,” Larranaga said. “We were sitting around for an hour. I said to one of my assistants. ’We’ve got to do something. This is awful.”’

Larranaga had, on occasion, staged baseball games with his players during his days at Bowling Green, usually when the team needed a change of pace. He decided it was time to pull out the trick again.

“We played the most unbelievable game of baseball in the airport,” Larranaga said. “It totally changed the attitude and the atmosphere.”

The plane never did arrive. The team spent the night in a hotel and took a bus back to Fairfax the next day, not arriving until 9 p.m. There was no time to prepare for the game against East Carolina the next day.

“So we called a team meeting,” Larranaga said. “I said, ’We’re not even going to practice for East Carolina. Show up ready to go. Your guys’ practice was the baseball game.’

“We won the next night, 104-62. It’s absolutely unbelievable how attitude has so much to do with it.”

The Patriots won the conference title that season and nearly beat Maryland in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Larranaga kept the ball and dubbed it the “unityball.” Larranaga arrived at practice Tuesday with the unityball tucked safely in his right pocket.

“I don’t know anything about baseball, by the way,” he said. “I stunk at it as a kid.”

Larranaga pitched and batted even though he still looked exhausted from the incredible ride he and his team are enjoying. He was working on six hours of sleep, four more than he got the night before.

“I’m running a little bit on fumes right now, but I get rejuvenated as the week goes along,” he said. “And I get more and more excited thinking about where we’re going and what we’re doing. It’s a good exhaustion.”

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