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Encounter with a
Celebrity |
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| The East Carolina
baseball team ran into a well-known
personality at the airport after their
series victory at Florida Atlantic. NFL Hall
of Famer and former Dallas Cowboy Michael
Irvin posed with the team (above) and with
ECU coach Billy Godwin (below) as they
waited to board their planes. (Submitted
photos) |
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By
Brian Bailey
©2014 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
View ECU's baseball
schedule & scores
This 2014 college baseball season is down to a precious few games for
Billy Godwin and his East Carolina Pirates.
Godwin’s squad is 27-18 overall and 13-8 in Conference USA after
taking two of three in their weekend series at Florida
Atlantic. There are just two non-conference games left on the schedule.
The Pirates play at North Carolina Tuesday night and then host High
Point in a couple of weeks.
There are nine more league games on the slate. The Pirates host Florida
International and then go to Southern Miss before returning home to take
on Texas-San Antonio.
Rice leads the league standings with three weeks to go and can still be
caught. An added bonus for the Pirates is that they have the
‘tie-breaker’ on the Owls by virtue of
that series win earlier this season.
All three of the league teams left on the Pirate schedule are right in
the thick of the conference race.
“We just have to win pitches, just win every pitch,” said Godwin. “We’ve
been doing a pretty good job of that. We know that every game is
important and we know that we don’t have many mulligans left. We need to
win as many games as we can down the stretch and stay in the short term.
The short term will lead to the long term.”
First up is North Carolina. The Pirates
beat the Tar Heels 3-2 a week ago in Greenville. Bad
weather is in the forecast and if the game can’t be played Tuesday
night, it might not be played at all.
“We haven’t talked about that,” explained Godwin. “When we went through
this with UNC-Wilmington, the only day we could find that we could play
would have been this coming Wednesday, but we go into the exams then. So
the days are getting limited.”
Former Pirate coach Gary Overton was my guest on my radio show Monday
night on Pirate Radio 1250 and 930. Overton spent four years on the NCAA
selection committee and knows firsthand that the Pirates have a lot of
work to do to make this year’s NCAA baseball tournament.
“I would say the Pirates would have to get their RPI around 45,” said
Overton. The Pirates are in the low 60’s currently, but could move up
with another win over North Carolina and a trio of series wins still on
the table.
There is still time. Overton told me that there really wasn’t a magic
number. Wins down the stretch will all be important. Two non-conference
wins and the three series victories would mean an 8-3 finish, which is
certainly possible.
The question is, would it be enough?
The Pirates got a treat while getting ready for their return flight from
Florida. NFL Hall of Famer and former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin was
flying out from a nearby gate.
Irvin stopped and posed for a picture with members of the Pirate
baseball team. He even took one with just himself and Godwin.
“It’s the greatest team in the history of mankind,” Godwin joked. The
coach is a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. “Michael was great. I felt like a
ten-year-old going up to him. He got a picture with our team and we all
enjoyed it. It was pretty neat. Now I just need Troy Aikman and Emmitt
Smith!”
Maybe that star power will rub off for this Pirate team down the home
stretch.
BB
The
Brian Bailey Show
airs on Pirate Radio
1250 on Mondays at
6:30 p.m. This
week's topic was
baseball with guests
former ECU coach
Gary Overton (left)
and ECU assistant
coach Ben Sanderson
(right):