CHRONICLING EAST
CAROLINA & CONFERENCE USA
SPORTS
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View from the East
Friday, June 1, 2012
By Al Myatt |
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Pirates sail into Red Storm
By
Al Myatt
©2012 Bonesville.net
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BONESVILLE
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Recorded by
Brian Bailey. |
 Earlier
this week, ECU coach Billy Godwin
and players Kevin Brandt, Jack Reinheimer,
Corey Thompson and Zach Wright discussed the
Pirates' selection as No. 2 seed in the
NCAA Chapel Hill regional:. |
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SELECT AUDIO CLIP.,. |
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For the East Carolina
baseball team, it is as Yogi Berra once said, deja vu all over again. A
matchup in the Chapel Hill regional today is a duplication of the
Pirates' first game in the 2011 Charlottesville regional 364 days ago.
ECU (35-22-1) plays St.
John's (37-21) at 11 a.m. this morning provided there are no storms to
deal with other than the Red one from New York City. The game has
already been bumped up a couple of hours from its initial 1 p.m. first
pitch due to weather considerations.
The Pirates played coach
Ed Blankmeyer's club twice at Virginia last year, taking
a 2-0 loss in the first game and
then sending the Storm back to the Big Apple
with a 6-4 win on the third day of the regional.
"What are the chances?"
said Pirates coach Billy Godwin. "You have 297 Division I baseball
teams, then you have a field of 64 and you're playing the same opponent
back-to-back years. That doesn't happen a whole lot."
In ECU's case, familiarity
has bred a degree of respect for a program that has won seven Big East
Conference championships and is making its 34th NCAA Tournament
appearance.
St. John's has been to the
College World Series six times. The last trip was in 1980 when the Red
Storm was actually the Redmen. Wanting to eliminate a potential
perception that might be offensive to native Americans, the Redmen
morphed into their present mascot in 1994.
"We've got a lot of
respect for them, their program and what they've accomplished," Godwin
said. "We saw last year that they have a good club and it's going to be
a tremendous challenge. They have good pitching. They have some
tremendous athletes, guys who can run and present problems in different
areas.
"They had a first-round
draft choice last year (shortstop Joe Panik, 29th overall to the San
Francisco Giants). ... They're a solid club."
The Red Storm is hitting
.284 as a team. Their pitching staff has a 3.81 earned run average. Top
sticks include senior Matt Wessinger with a .348 batting average, six
home runs and 45 RBIs, junior Jeremy Baltz (.342, 7 HRs, 49 RBIs),
junior Sean O'Hare (.333, 3 HRs, 40 RBIs) and sophomore Frank Schwindel
(.318, 4 HRs, 29 RBIs).
St. John's is expected to
start junior right-hander Kyle Hansen (4-5) who has 100 strikeouts in 86
1/3 innings. He's issued 26 walks and has a 3.44 earned run average.
"He's got a good arm,"
Godwin said. "He'll be up to 94 (mph). He's shown some good velocity. We
saw him pitch a little bit last year against UVa. We know he's got a
power arm."
The Pirates will counter
with freshman right-hander Jeff Hoffman, who is from Latham, NY, just
outside of Albany.
"Our thought is that Jeff
has probably as good a stuff as anyone on our team," Godwin said. "He's
pitched well for us every time we've put him out there. For us to win
this thing, it's going to take more than one guy. We felt like he was
throwing as well as anyone we had. It was a good matchup and that's why
we made that decision. ... He's one of our better guys we feel, coming
down the stretch here. He's a guy who can go out there and give us a
quality start. We're excited about where he's at in his development."
Hoffman (3-1, 3.37 ERA)
may be playing his first season at ECU but Godwin said the freshman
label no longer applies.
"I told him this the other
day," said the Pirate skipper. "There are no freshmen, sophomores,
juniors or seniors. We need competitors and that's what he's proven to
be."
Playing in Chapel Hill
isn't the same as hosting but it's a relatively short trip, especially
for a team that is used to travel in Conference USA.
"It's a nice facility,"
said Godwin of Boshamer Stadium. "The surface is good. We're familiar
with it, having played here."
ECU
lost 1-0 in 10 innings at North
Carolina on April 25. A game in Greenville with the Tar Heels on May 9
was rained out.
North Carolina plays
Cornell following ECU's game in the double-elimination event.
The Tar Heels are the top
seed among the four teams. ECU is the No. 2 seed and St. John's is No.
3.
Those numbers don't mean
much to Godwin. Everybody is dangerous.
"At this time of year, you
can put it all out the window," Godwin said. "It's just about who plays
the best game, who executes the best. They're all going to be good. All
of the teams at this point are going to pose some threat or they
wouldn't be in the tournament."
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06/01/2012 02:22 AM
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