East Carolina will play in the annual event named for Keith LeClair, the baseball coach who passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) in 2006.
The Keith LeClair Classic will be played at Clark-LeClair Stadium. The Pirates are coached by Cliff Godwin, who played for LeClair.
Godwin said LeClair still has a strong presence in the program. Godwin wears No. 23, which was LeClair’s number.
“I mean, No. 1, his picture is all over our stadium and our facility with quotes,” Godwin said. ‘Like one quote is, “If you’re going to put your name on something, that better be your best work.’ That’s one that’s in our team room.
“All of our incoming guys every summer read ‘Coaching Third,’ which is the story about Coach LeClair written by Bethany Bradsher.
“So, absolutely, I mean, a lot of the foundation that we have here is because of what Coach LeClair and the staff he ran and the teams that he coached were able to build. I mean it’s amazing what the facility has come to be compared to where I played at Harrington Field.
“A lot of that credit goes to Coach LeClair and the teams that he coached while he was here.”
LeClair’s family will be recognized.
“Lynn, his wife, and then J.D. and Audrey, his two children,” Godwin said.
Schedule revision
The schedule for the LeClair Classic has been amended due to the weather forecast on Friday.
Cal-State Fullerton (4-3) and Southeastern Louisiana (6-3) will get the event started on Friday at 10 a.m.
No. 11 ECU (5-3) plays Purdue (6-2) at 2 p.m.
The schedules for Saturday and Sunday have not been changed.
Superb starting pitching
The Pirates’ weekend rotation of Trey Yesavage, Zach Root and Jake Hunter has been very strong through two games each.
“Trey and Root and Jake Hunter have done a really good job,” Godwin said. “They have pounded the strike zone for the most part, and they’ve got good stuff. That gives us a chance to win, which that’s all you can ask any starting pitcher, is to give your team a chance to win. They have done that every time they’ve gone out.”
Classic thriller
ECU’s 10-9 walkoff win over then No. 15 North Carolina on Sunday to take the series was a classic.
“It was awesome,” Godwin said. “We didn’t play bad on Friday night (2-1 loss at UNC). We just got beat by one run, and it was a good college baseball game. And then, you lose the first game, so the momentum, Carolina has it, and then you go to Fayetteville, and I thought Zach Root gave us a great start. And offensively, we swung the bats really good. And we won, 7-4.
“Then now, you’re coming back to your home turf. And we knew that our bullpen would be a little bit thin, but Jake gave us a great start. We get out to the lead, and the crowd (stadium record 6,017) was amazing. I mean, it was just awesome.
“It was a Super Regional atmosphere, as I told our guys it would be before the game. It was probably a little bit better than I anticipated. They were just so into it. And then, it’s just back and forth the last three innings, where both teams score each inning.
“I just was really proud of the fight our guys showed, because it would have been easy to, hey, you lose the lead twice — it would have been easy to just kind of pack it in, and the guys just kept fighting. We were able to walk them off, which was awesome.”
Coin flip decides
ECU was the visiting team for the second straight game in the UNC series on Saturday.
“We flipped it,” Godwin said. “Well, our athletic administrators flipped a coin to determine that, but next year at the pro park, we’ll be home. So, the previous two years, we played the two games at a home site and then the one game at the opposing site. So last year was the last year of that, so really this was a new beginning, so the only way you could do it was flip a coin to be fair.”
Inspiring moment for No. 16
Parker Byrd of the Pirates became the first player in NCAA Division I history to bat with a prosthetic leg when he drew a walk in a 16-2 season-opening win over visiting Rider.
The crowd support was tremendous.
“It’s been a long journey when you’re in it every day, like Parker is and his parents,” Godwin said. “I’m in it pretty much every day too, because I see him. But just to see how much he has improved wearing a prosthetic, I mean, he’s only had a prosthetic for a little over a year. I mean, he got it pretty close to Christmas Day of 2022. So, I mean, he was taking live at-bats in November off some of our pitchers who were still just getting some work in. I mean, that was the first time he had seen live pitching since the accident, and to look up, and now, he’s always in scrimmages. He got to hit in one of our scrimmages.
“I didn’t know when the moment was going to happen, of course, and like I’ve said many times, I would want to tell everybody, ‘Hey, what time, what day, what game, where it was going to be, when he was going to get to hit,’ but it was an awesome moment, especially to be on opening day.
“And you look, it was February 16th, he wore 16, we scored 16 runs, and his dad told me that his Bible verse for that day was John 3:16. A lot of great things that happened. But when he walked to the plate, he gave a lot of people hope, and people that have lost a limb, and whether it be fighting in a war or a bad accident. It’s given a ton of people across the country and the world hope, because they see this 20-year-old guy that just continues to fight each and every day. He got a college at-bat in a Division 1 baseball game and that is pretty amazing.”
Putting the field together
Cal State-Fullerton is coached by former ECU pitching coach Jason Dietrich.
That gave Godwin a connection in assembling the teams for this year’s LeClair Classic.
“It’s always just years in advance,” Godwin said. “You try to put together a competitive schedule, because that’s what Coach LeClair would want. Something that fans get excited for. So, I think we’ve got a really, really good collection of teams in Purdue, Southeastern Louisiana, and, of course, Cal State-Fullerton. … It will be exciting all weekend with some really good competition.
Dietrich’s tenure
Dietrich was highly recommended when he came to ECU.
“He was awesome,” Godwin said. “He was just what we needed when our prior pitching coach took another job. I didn’t know Jason Dietrich at all. His agent sent me an email. I was recruiting in Orlando. I just read his resume. I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t know this guy, but I’m going to figure it out who it is.’ And then, of course, I go to my East Carolina connections. I forward the email to Erik Bakich, because he’s from California, and Nick Schnabel, he’s from California, and then Bryant Ward, who is the recruiting coordinator at UCLA, and I think Erik responded pretty immediately and said, ‘Hey, Bryant is really close with him. Give Bryant a call.’
“And so, of course, I called Bryant, and he loved him, and then a ton of his references, and then he came to interview with his wife, Bibi, and I felt very confidently that he was the guy we needed. And he was, of course, a part of the COVID year, the 2020 team, and then the ’21 team with Gavin Williams and (Carson) Whisenhunt and those guys. And I think he just did a tremendous job with our pitching staff that year.”
Performance disparity
The Pirates are 0-3 in road games this season, 1-0 at neutral sites and 4-0 at home.
“The game at Carolina was a 2-1 game, and it’s really good competitive baseball,” Godwin said. “And Campbell, not taking anything away from them, but we gave him 20 free 90s (unearned bases). We just didn’t play good.
“This week at Old Dominion, we didn’t play great either. We’ve got to figure out how to play better on the road, which we will. It’s early. As I tell people all the time, Coach LeClair used to say this all the time, ‘the season is a marathon, not a sprint.’
“We’re always fighting to try to be 8-3 in those 11-game segments of the season, because if you win eight games every 11, then that sets you up to be at 40 (wins) with really one, you have one game to play with that’s an extra game after those segments. So, we’re 5-3. Would we like to be a little bit better? Of course. I mean, look, you’d like to be undefeated, but we’re not. But what I can tell you is we’ll play better at the end of the season than we do right now. That’s the goal.”
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