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Senior recognition adjusted

By Al Myatt
©2016 Bonesville.net
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East Carolina's baseball seniors were scheduled to be recognized when the Pirates hosted Campbell on Tuesday night but that game was rained out. ECU's upperclassmen still had their Senior Night under modified circumstances.

"We did a senior dinner Tuesday night up at the football club level with all the seniors' families and our entire sports staff," said Pirates coach Cliff Godwin. "We did pretty much what we would have done for them if we had played plus we had a video for them.

"It was a pretty nice ceremony that we had Tuesday night up at the club level."

The ECU seniors were presented framed jerseys with an action photo of themselves.

"Really nice," Godwin said.

Homecoming for Pirates coach

Godwin is very familiar with the Central Florida program the Pirates will face tonight, Friday and Saturday to close the regular season. Godwin was associate head coach and recruiting coordinator for the Knights from 2009 to 2011 under coach Terry Rooney.

"The one constant is Terry," Godwin said. "Terry Rooney and I worked together for five years spanning from Notre Dame to LSU and then UCF for three years. He is one of my closest friends. I have a lot of respect for what he does and how hard he works. That's the constant since I've been there. They've had different assistant coaches. The constant in Terry's teams — they're going to play hard, they're going to be well coached, they're going to be fundamentally sound and they're going to be ready to play."

As the Pirates made their way to Raleigh-Durham Airport for the flight to Orlando on Wednesday morning, Godwin was hopeful his club could practice at UCF's Jay Bergman Field.

"I don't know if the weather is going to allow us to get on the field," said the ECU skipper. "We'll go hit in the cages if nothing else."

The UCF facility can be a hitters' park.

"It just depends on how the wind is blowing," Godwin said. "It can be very hitter-friendly at times depending on what the wind is doing. It's not a big ball park but if the wind is blowing in, it will play normal to slightly bigger."

The stadium seats 3,600. Its dimensions are 320 feet down the lines, 360 in the power alleys and 390 to center.

Pirates staying in Sunshine State

The Pirates will remain in Florida for the American Athletic Conference Tournament, which starts Tuesday in Clearwater. ECU is the defending champion of the AAC Tournament.

"We'll spend Saturday night in Orlando," Godwin said. "We'll lift weights Sunday at UCF in the morning and then we'll head over to Clearwater on Sunday afternoon."

Bulls surprise

ECU outscored South Florida in a three-game series last weekend, 21-18, but the Bulls took the series, two wins to one. A nine-run inning lifted the Pirates to a 14-7 win in the series opener.

"When you look at South Florida, they didn't hit lefties well but they were pretty effective against (Evan) Kruczynski and (Jacob) Wolf," Godwin said. "It's baseball. I was talking to somebody this morning. The thing people don't understand — they look at South Florida's record (23-28, 8-13 AAC) and they look at last place and think that you can just sweep them. Baseball more than any other sport is a game that the best team doesn't always win. On any given day, any team can win. It's just the team that plays the best. South Florida played better than we did on Saturday and Sunday. That's why they won the series."

Close games with Knights in 2015

East Carolina won all four of its matchups with UCF last season by one run, including a 10-inning contest in the series opener in Greenville. The Pirates topped the Knights 4-3 in Clearwater en route to the AAC tournament title.

"I don't know if last year will play into the series at all this year," Godwin said. "Central Florida is a much different team than they were last year and so are we. If anything it provides fuel to them that they want to beat us because we beat them in the conference tournament as well. We beat them four times out of the four games that we played them last year. They were all close games. The one in the tournament was a walk-off win as well. I don't think that will have any bearing. They're fighting for their lives and we're trying to position ourselves to have a chance to win the conference championship for the regular season."

ECU has a 31-19-1 overall record and is 12-8-1 in the AAC. UCF is 25-28 for the season and 8-13 in the league.

Recruiting at UCF

Godwin said the Knights staff he was part of faced some challenges in recruiting when they arrived.

"When we first got the job there, it wasn't easy because UCF wasn't good," Godwin said. "They had fallen on hard times, hence a coaching change. You are in Florida with a rich talent base but you also have Florida, Florida State, Miami, South Florida, FAU — everybody was getting better players than UCF was. It was tough for us to recruit early but once we got in there and got our feet underneath us we were able to recruit some of the best players. That's why we went to a regional in 2011. They went to a regional in 2012. They lost to Stony Brook, who went to the World Series that year."

Momentum for league tournament

ECU goes into UCF with a two-game losing streak. Success in Orlando could impact the regular season conference championship and provide momentum going into the AAC Tournament.

"You want to win games," Godwin said. "That's what the bottom line is. You want to win games. Most likely we would have to sweep and Houston would have to beat Tulane two out of three or we could win two out of three and Houston could sweep. I don't know if that would happen."

Houston hosts league-leading Tulane for a three-game series to wrap up the regular season.

The Green Wave is 35-16 overall and 13-6 in league play. Houston has a 32-20 record and is 10-10 in the AAC.

"Last year we swept (the final league series with Cincinnati) and we needed UConn to win one game and we would have tied Houston for the regular season championship," Godwin recalled. "Houston swept UConn so we've just got to focus on what we can control and that's playing good against UCF."

Keys this weekend

Godwin talked about keys for a successful series at UCF. The opener is at 6:30 tonight.

"We need Kruczynski and (Jimmy) Boyd and Wolf to pitch well like they have most of the year," Godwin said. "We'll need to be efficient offensively. We need to get guys on base and put pressure on their pitching staff and their defense."

E-mail Al Myatt

PAGE UPDATED 05/19/16 02:51 AM.

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