East Carolina partisans will be acutely aware that the Pirates are within two wins of finally completing the program’s marathon quest to reach the College World Series when they congregate in person or watch on television as the nationally 8th-seeded team hosts Texas in the Greenville Super Regional this weekend.
Since 1964 the Pirates have earned postseason bids 32 times and have hosted and won six of seven NCAA regionals, including two at neutral sites. Through last season, they had also competed their way into six super regionals, all of which they lost and all of which were hosted by other teams except when ECU served as the designated home team as it was bested by Tennessee at Kinston’s Grainger Stadium in 2001.
Could this be the magic season that Coach Cliff Godwin will lead the Pirates to the super regional title and the subsequent berth in the College World Series that iconic former ECU coach Keith LeClair envisioned when he embedded the dream in the program’s fabric before he succumbed to Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 2006?
Godwin was one of LeClair’s players and openly takes the dream to heart. He was a catcher and co-captain on the ECU team whose road to Omaha ran into that roadblock at Grainger Stadium in 2001.
This year Godwin and his charges will have an advantage they’ve not experienced before as they welcome the 9th-seeded Longhorns to Greenville: they will be playing the super regional in the facility inspired by LeClair that memorializes his name, Clark-LeClair Stadium.
ECU’s home crowd advantage — fueled by the packed grandstands and the boisterous, jolly, savvy diehards in the “Jungle” — has been remarkable since the privately-funded facility opened in 2005 with a key financial contribution to the construction effort coming from real estate entrepreneur and ECU alum Bill Clark.
This time the house to which LeClair helped give birth could be the difference maker as the Pirates set out on Friday to take the final two steps to Omaha.
GREENVILLE SUPER REGIONAL SCHEDULE
FRIDAY, JUNE 10
ECU vs. Texas, 12 pm, ESPN2
SATURDAY, JUNE 11
ECU vs. Texas, 12 pm, ESPN2
SUNDAY, JUNE 12
ECU vs. Texas (if necessary), Time & TV TB
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