Condo: After coming off your
first season as a head coach in Conference USA, what was your impression
of the league compared to others you have coached in?
Mazey: There are some
similarities in Conference USA and the SEC and the ACC as far as the top
4 or 5 teams. However, the SEC is loaded with good teams from top to
bottom without exception. Kentucky and Vanderbilt, the 2 SEC teams who
are usually at the bottom of the league every year, I really believe
would do very well in C-USA. The league is just loaded with talent. The
ACC has added some much needed depth in the past 15 years with the
additions of Florida State, Miami, and Virginia Tech.
The similarity between C-USA and
the ACC is that anytime in baseball you have a conference that has some
northern teams and some southern teams, there is going to be an
imbalance from the top teams to the bottom teams. You don't have that in
the SEC.
Condo: I never cared much
for preseason polls, but don't you feel East Carolina has not gotten the
national recognition it deserves?
Mazey: Definitely. You would
think based on the success we've had the last 5 years alone that we
would be deserving of some spot in one of the polls. I think we've
proven our success here with the ability to compete at a very high level
year in and year out. Some of the teams who are ranked ahead of us are
not the same caliber as we are. One poll does not even list us in the
top 56 in the nation. The preseason polls, like most things, are very
political. The poll at the end of the season is the one that matters.
Condo: Why is this and does
being picked fifth in the league preseason polls give the team a little
added motivation?
Mazey: I think it does. Our
guys play with a lot of confidence and feel like they can beat anybody,
and for someone to tell them that they are not that good is a slap in
the face to them. But it's a good slap in the face.
Condo: With only nine
returning wins from last year's staff and a host of talented newcomers,
does this present your biggest challenge in determining roles early in
the season?
Mazey: There is no question.
We lost the majority of our staff from last year's team and have brought
in some very quality pitchers. However, it is not very often that a
newcomer to a program at this level steps in and dominates no matter how
talented he is. It takes some time to learn how to win at this level.
This group of pitchers is going to be very special eventually, but
someone has to step up and be the guy who can win a lot of games in his
first year.
Condo: Which guys do you
expect to step in and help the team immediately on the mound?
Mazey: I think the addition
of Brody Taylor at the semester break will really help us, and we've got
a tremendous amount of talent in the freshman class. Ricky Brooks, Shane
Mathews, Mike Flye, Brett Braxton, and Chris Powell are all
right-handers that we feel are going to win a lot of games in their
careers here, and Dustin Sasser and John Emmert will be the same from
the left side.
Condo: Matt Bishop went down
with Tommy John surgery early last season and freshman Jason Neitz went
down with a sore arm. Will those guys be ready for the start of the
season?
Mazey: I think they will be
ready to pitch, but not pitch too effectively yet. We are going to work
both of those guys back in slowly. We need them more in April, May, and
June than we do in January and February.
Condo: With so many new guys
on staff, can we expect to see a lot of guys getting innings early in
the season?
Mazey: You sure can. With so
much talent, the toughest thing is going to be finding the right mix of
starters, long relievers, and short relievers. We will probably pitch
most of our guys early and see who is going to rise to the top.
Condo: Will Greg Bunn come
out of his closing role into the rotation this year and if so who on the
staff could we look to close games?
Mazey: We are going to (look
to) Greg to start the season and see how he does. He has unbelievable
talent and we are trying to maximize how much we use him. However, he
could always go back to a closing role if three guys step up and show
that they can be effective starters. Matt Bishop is also a candidate to
be a closer when he returns. He has the bulldog mentality that you need
in that position, he throws strikes, and comes right at you. Hopefully
that situation will resolve itself.
Condo: Last year you
returned a lot of seniors on the mound and had very few senior position
players resulting in a lot of different lineups. Will it be easier to
define lineups and roles with so many returning position players?
Mazey: You would think so,
but it's not. We are having a pretty good problem right now because guys
that we didn't count on to be starters have been swinging the bats
pretty well. The biggest decision will be a the DH spot. Drew Costanzo
should hit in the middle of the lineup for us, but Mike Harrington, Mike
Grace, and Adam Witter could all be very effective DH's as well. The
problem is, you can only play one at a time.
Condo: With a relatively
young pitching staff, how important is it to get off to a good offensive
start?
Mazey: Very important. With
any freshman, especially a pitcher, confidence is the key to success. If
they know they can go out and challenge people, they may give up a few
runs, but it will help their mentality in the long run. However, if they
do that, they need to know that we are still going to win games if they
pitch like that, so run support is going to be essential for them to be
effective.
Condo: What will the keys be
for this group to have an outstanding offensive season?
Mazey: Obviously, in the
past, Darryl Lawhorn was the guy who made this team click offensively,
but I think the key to this team is that if Darryl has an off day
offensively, we have enough good hitters around him now that we can
still score a lot of runs. We are going to be a tough team for an
opposing pitcher to pitch to throughout the lineup, with Jamie Paige,
Ryan Jones, Darryl and Trevor Lawhorn, Ryan Norwood, Costanzo, Jake
Smith, and Mark Minicozzi. Any one of those guys can hurt you at any
time.
Condo: Tell us about the
defensive side of the ball and what changes will be different from last
year, especially at short, where Daryl Lawhorn ended the season, and
second, where Kevin O'Sullivan graduated.
Mazey: Our shortstop this
year will be a junior college transfer from California named Billy
Richardson. Billy has great hands and makes some great plays, and we
should be a lot better at shortstop this year. He can also run and
should steal 20 or so bases this year. Right now it looks like Trevor
Lawhorn will start the season at second base, and like Billy, Trevor
makes some highlight reel plays. If Trevor can find a way to stay
consistent offensively, he will be a good player for us.
Condo: The toughest question
for a coach, what does this years team have to do in order to be an
Omaha caliber type team?
Mazey: If you look at the
teams every year that make the College World Series, they can all hit
from top to bottom. I think we could be one of those teams. If we could
just find 5 or 6 pitchers that could be consistent and keep us in games,
I think that will determine how far this team could go.
Condo: Do you think moving
the college season back three weeks would help college baseball or hurt
it?
Mazey: I have always been a
big proponent of playing college baseball in the summertime. I think it
really hurts college baseball in general that we play so early when it
is so cold. We currently have a sport that is literally unfair for the
northern half of the country. As long as we play when we do, the high
school talent from the northern states will continue to go south to play
college baseball, therefore creating that imbalance.
I would love to see us start
playing at the end of our exams in May, play throughout the summertime,
and play the World Series in early August, before school starts. There
are so many advantages to doing that, and very few disadvantages. I
don't know if we will ever get to that point, but I think that is what's
best for the game.
Condo: Break down C-USA for
us this year and who we should look to see at the top when the season
ends?
Mazey: Well, I think we'd
all love to see ECU on top when the season ends. The other teams that
are going to be tough this year are Tulane, who is ranked 10th in one
preseason poll, Southern Miss, Houston, who brought in some outstanding
freshman arms. TCU returns the pitcher of the year in the conference and
has some other very good arms, and South Florida returns the middle of
their lineup, which was very good last year. It's gonna be a battle, but
I like our chances.