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Bailey's
Take on Pirate Sports
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From the Anchor Desk
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
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By Brian Bailey
Sports Anchor of WNCT-TV 9 |
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Football
+ baseball + fans = winning weekend
©2003 Bonesville.net
Damane Duckett led the
Purple defense to the shut out victory on Saturday.
Terrance Copper was
the offensive star.
And as I said last
week, the real winners in the spring football game were the Pirate fans.
Thousands flocked to
Greenville for the return of “The Great Pirate Purple Gold Pigskin Pigout
Party”. Almost ten thousand fans were in the stands for the game. Hundreds
of others enjoyed the carnival and the tailgating.
Maybe it was the
weather, as the sun finally came out in Greenville. It was a great sports
day. Baseball in the early afternoon (because of the rainout,) football for
the day, and then more baseball at night. It was just an outstanding day to
be a sports fan in ECU.
As for the game,
Copper’s performance was the difference. Desmond Robinson probably outplayed
Paul Troth at quarterback, but I’m convinced that if Troth could have thrown
to Copper, the outcome would have been different.
That’s not taking
anything away from Robinson. I think he brings some exciting options to the
Pirate attack. But Troth had very few options to throw to in the spring
game.
The best part of the
game was just watching the competition. Competition always makes a team
better.
The other bright spot
in the game was the running of Vonta Leach. Leach moved to offense as an
experiment last year. Now, he looks like he is a bona fide offensive option.
Vonta flat out brings the game to the defense. He brings a linebacker’s
mentality to the offense. He is a real plus for this Pirate team.
The other good news
for Pirate fans is that John Thompson is already looking forward to next
year’s spring game.
“One of the first
questions that I was asked when I got the job was about the spring game,”
Thompson said. “I really didn’t think about it, but I said we’d have one.
This has turned out to be a really great deal. I couldn’t be happier with
the event.”
Thompson went out of
his way to thank the fans afterwards.
“The best thing about
it was these fans,” Thompson said. “I’m just really grateful for all of the
excitement that these fans brought to this. It’s just really exciting to be
a part of the Pirate family. I just want to thank everyone and I can’t wait
until next year.”
Pirate
baseball takes another series
East Carolina has
played five series in Conference USA to date. In all five, the Pirates have
taken two out of three, and stand in second place in the league.
The Pirates have had
all kinds of problems scoring runs. Sunday’s win was a 3-2 gut wrencher, in
which Greg Bunn came on and pitched a masterful three and a third innings in
relief.
“That’s the kind of
pitcher he is, though,” Mazey said. “He doesn’t have great command of it, so
he’s going to pitch into jams and then pitch out of them.”
It’s a busy week for
Randy Mazey and company. The Pirates will make up their game with Campbell
today. East Carolina will host North Carolina on Wednesday night.
Mazey is pleased with
some aspects of his team’s play. But he knows that his Pirates will have to
step it up a notch in the second half of the season.
“We will have to play
better with the teams we’ll see,” Mazey said.
But give Mazey credit.
These Pirates are right in the thick of the Conference USA race in his first
season.
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02/23/2007 01:25:10 AM
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