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College Sports in the Carolinas
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View
from the East
Monday, May 31, 2004
By Al Myatt
ECU Beat Writer for The News &
Observer |
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No looking back as Grainger
beckons
©2004 Bonesville.net
Will North Carolina or N.C. State be assigned to the NCAA Tournament
baseball regional being
hosted by East Carolina in Kinston?
Will the Pirates be a top eight seed nationally?
Many Pirate fans will be watching the selection show at noon on ESPN 2 for
answers today.
The Tar Heels or Wolfpack could be ECU’s guests because of the preference of
the NCAA selection committee for keeping teams close to home. The committee
tries to avoid sending two teams from the same league to a regional, so one,
but not both, of the in-state ACC schools could be traveling down Highway
70.
I noticed that Coach Keith LeClair
figures UNC will get the nod for
Kinston because the Heels and the Pirates didn’t match up during the regular
season. Charlie Carr, senior associate athletics director at Florida State,
is chairman of the NCAA’s baseball committee. Carr played football and
baseball at UNC and was an athletics administrator at ECU before
accompanying former Pirates AD Dave Hart to Tallahassee. Former ECU AD Mike
Hamrick, now at Nevada-Las Vegas, is a member of the selection committee.
The NCAA committee’s emphasis on teams’ ratings power index and recent
performance doesn’t create optimism for a top eight seeding nationally for
the Pirates. ECU is in the mid teens nationally in RPI and finished the
regular season with losses in four of its last seven games, including
1-2 in the Conference USA Tournament.
The only time ECU was really in a must-win situation in that span was when
they went to Southern Miss and needed a victory to wrap up the C-USA regular
season championship, which they did convincingly in the first game of the
series.
ECU’s trip to Houston for the C-USA event was disappointing after an opening
win over Louisville that set the school record for victories in a season
with 48.
“We kind of decided to
forget about this tournament,” said
second-year Pirates coach Randy Mazey after losses to Houston and Texas
Christian knocked the Pirates out of the double-elimination event. “We’re
just looking ahead instead of looking back.”
ECU is basically healthy, Mazey said, except for Darryl Lawhorn, who is day
to day with his treatment for a foot ailment.
The Pirates won’t be dwelling on the league tournament and there was better
news Sunday with the NCAA’s announcement that ECU will host a regional at
Grainger Stadium in Kinston.
ECU had anticipated being on hand for the duration of the C-USA Tournament.
The Pirates were scheduled to fly back commercially from Houston on Sunday
night. The team will convene today in the Pat Draughon room on the second
floor of the Ward Sports Medicine Building to watch the announcements of the
rest of the NCAA field on a half-hour program on ESPN 2 at noon.
ECU is scheduled to play at 7 p.m. on Friday in Kinston and the Pirates, in
all probability a No. 1 seed, will find out who their first round opponent —
a No. 4 seed if ECU is a No. 1 — will be. The Nos. 2 and 3 seeds would play
at 3 p.m. on Friday, provided the Pirates are a No. 1 seed.
Game times for Saturday are 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The regional final is 1 p.m. Sunday with a second game, if necessary,
scheduled to start 45 minutes after the first game is completed.
ECU interim athletics director Nick Floyd said he anticipates a sellout at
the regional. Floyd and staff have been making preparations with Kinston
personnel for weeks and received the final go-ahead to put plans in motion
on Sunday. Pirates interim sports information director Jody Jones said the
Kinston Indians list capacity of the park at 4,100 but, in reality, it is
bursting at the seams at 3,500.
Because of a schedule conflict with the K-Tribe the following weekend, ECU
has submitted a bid to host a potential super regional at Fleming Stadium in
Wilson on June 11-13. The super regional sites are scheduled to be announced
on Sunday, June 6, on the 10 p.m. edition of SportsCenter on ESPN.
The Pirates hosted a regional at Wilson in 2001 and a super regional at
Kinston the same year.
ECU student pickup for regional ticket books is Tuesday. Any tickets left
over from the student pickup or not sold from the allotments to other teams
are scheduled to be sold at the ECU ticket office on the south side of
Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium beginning at 9 a.m. on Thursday. Regional ticket books
are $48 each.
ECU is assured of its sixth straight trip to the postseason in the NCAA
event. Now the Pirates can focus on their goal from the beginning — Omaha.
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02/23/2007 12:45:44 AM
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