Road to Omaha starts in Virginia

By Brian Bailey
©2016 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.

East Carolina will head back to the scene of its first road series of the year for NCAA play as the Pirates travel to Charlottesville for the NCAA regionals.

ECU will be the third seed in the regional and will take on second seed Bryant on Friday at 6 p.m. in the second game of the first day of the Charlottesville Regional.

The Pirates took two out of three from Virginia back in February. Those two wins vaulted ECU in the national rankings and the Pirates stayed in the polls for most of the 2016 season.

East Carolina finished second in Charlottesville in 2011, falling to top seed Virginia 13-1 in the first game of the championship series.

Most of the late season projections had ECU in the Raleigh regional as the two seed. D1baseball.com had that same projection as late as Monday morning.

The NCAA tournament committee had other ideas, and the Pirates will now pack for the return trip to Charlottesville.

"I'm just happy for our guys," said head coach Cliff Godwin at the team's NCAA selection show party held at the Mello Mushroom in Greenville. "Our guys have worked extremely hard this year to put ourselves in the position to make the postseason. I really didn't care where we went. I just want to keep playing."

The Pirates take on Bryant in their first game. The Bulldogs won 47 games against just ten losses this season.

"I know that they have a really good head coach," Godwin said. "He's been there for a long time and they have a great club. We will need to be on our A-game."

The Pirates limp into the regionals after an 0-2 run in the American Athletic Conference Baseball Championship. It was the first time since 1995 that an East Carolina team failed to win a game in its league's postseason tournament.

At the American tournament Coach Godwin questioned his team's toughness. He says a couple of long workouts may have helped his squad improve in that area.

"Saturday we had an extended scrimmage for about ten innings because we knew we had some weather coming in," said Godwin. "It was one of the best scrimmages that I've been a part of that late in the season. Our guys really got after it. I would hope these guys have a little chip on their shoulder. I think they are excited to play in the postseason."

Fourth seed William and Mary will take on top seed and host UVa in the first game of the regional at 1:00 o'clock Friday afternoon. The Pirates and Bryant will then follow at 6:00.

The NCAA regionals are 16 separate, four-team, double-elimination tournaments. The Charlottesville regional is paired with the Lubbock regional, with Texas Tech hosting as the number five national seed. If the Red Raiders win, they would then host the Charlottesville regional winners in the super regionals.

This will be East Carolina's 28th trip to the NCAA regionals. The Pirates have more regional trips then any other school that has yet to participate in the College World Series in Omaha.

That trip to Omaha is, and will always be, the goal for this program. This year the journey starts in Charlottesville.

BB

E-mail Brian Bailey