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BAILEY'S TAKE
ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the Anchor Desk
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
By Brian Bailey |
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ECU in search of
momentum
By
Brian Bailey
©2010 Bonesville.net
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Diamond Pirates Limp
Home from West Coast
Trip
After East Carolina's
baseball team limped
home on Sunday after
going just 1-3 on the
team’s West Coast road
trip, you could
literally hear the
letdown in head coach
Billy Godwin’s voice.
“We are disappointed,
there’s no doubt,” said
Godwin. “But we really
didn’t play like we had
played the first ten
games of the season. I
feel that we could have
very easily come back
3-1 had we done some
very fundamental things.
"I don’t necessarily get
bent out of shape when
we get beat but I do get
pretty upset when we
don’t play well. I don’t
think we executed any
phase of the game at a
high level.”
Several of the Pirate
starters are having
trouble at the plate.
Godwin says it’s not
hard to figure out the
reason.
“I think it’s pretty
easy to tell why we’re
struggling,” said
Godwin. “I think it’s
their approach (at the
plate). We continue to
swing at pitches early
in the count that aren’t
good pitches to swing
at. I also think we’re
taking pitches that we
should be more
aggressive on. Out pitch
selection has got to
improve.”
Ironically, the trip got
off to a great start
with
Wednesday's game
against Cal-State
Northridge.
“Our preparation before
the Cal-State Northridge
game was as good as it’s
been since I’ve been at
East Carolina,” said
Godwin. “Our BP,
(batting practice)
infield-outfield, our
focus, it was all great.
There just wasn’t any
rollover.
"We got the first two
hits against Northridge
and I’m thinking we’re
going to have a good
day. Then we got just
three hits the rest of
the day against 27 outs.
"It seemed like we were
snake bit the rest of
the trip, but we have to
overcome that.”
Seth Maness saved the
Pirates from a possible
0-4 trip with a great
performance on Saturday
in
ECU’s 3-2 win
over Pepperdine. Maness
struck out a career high
11 batters, allowing
just two runs on six
hits.
“The bright spot was
Seth Maness,” said
Godwin. “I thought he
put us on his shoulders
on Saturday and he had
the mentality that we
were not going to lose
that game. That was huge
at a time when we really
needed a boost.”
Another bright spot is
the hitting of Dustin
Harrington. Harrington
extended his current
hitting streak to 22
games while out west.
That streak is the
fourth longest in school
history. For the year,
Harrington is hitting a
team high .421. He leads
the team in hits, runs,
total bases and on base
percentage.
East Carolina has five
games this week with the
home game tonight
against Gardner-Webb,
tomorrow's makeup game
at High Point, and then
the three-game series
with Monmouth this
weekend. Godwin has his
pitching schedule set,
with the exception of
Sunday.
“We are going to throw
Joseph Hughes on Tuesday
night,” said Godwin.
“Then Zach Woods will go
on Wednesday. We’ll
pitch Kevin Brandt on
Friday and Seth Maness
on Saturday. We’ll wait
and see about what we do
on Sunday. We may wait
another week with Brad
Mincey and be extra
careful with him.”
Godwin knows it’s a long
season and certainly
isn’t ready to push the
panic button yet.
“It was one weekend," he
said, referring to the
West Coast games. "We’ve
done so many good things
to start the year. We
knew the first month of
this season was going to
be an absolute
challenge. I didn’t
really have a set win
total out of that. I
just wanted to play good
baseball and we’ve done
that for the most part.”
The Pirates did battle
to get that win on
Saturday in the series
finale. Now this team
hopes to parlay that
victory into a lengthy
winning streak.
“We now have a little
momentum, after winning
the last game of the
trip," said Godwin. "Now
let’s get back home and
get going.”
The Pirates will
certainly have that
chance, with 14 of their
next 15 games at home at
Clark-LeClair Stadium.
BB
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03/16/2010 01:47 AM |
