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ECU News, Notes and Commentary
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The
Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Notes: Another hurdle for
Hands
©2005 Bonesville.net
Fall
sports are wrapping up, winter sports are knocking at the door and even
baseball has found its way into the news lately. So it’s a good time for a
grab bag of items from around the Pirate athletic world.
A month
ago, after the game that branded him the rising star of the Pirate defense,
Marcus Hands reflected on his past three years: His initial commitment to
play at North Carolina, a year at Hargrave Military Academy when he was
declared academically ineligible, and another year spent in Greenville away
from football until he could improve his grades.
“You’ve
definitely got to love football to go through what I’ve gone through,” he
said then, and now he’s got to clear one more obstacle before he can put his
talent and passion on the football field each week.
Hands, a
sophomore defensive end who starred at Laney High School in Wilmington
before he began the odyssey that brought him to the ECU first team, is now
out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery to fix a separated
shoulder. The ECU defense will certainly miss him in its last three games,
but when he gets healthy he will be the kind of player on whom the Pirates
can build their future.
“He’s a
gold mine,” head coach Skip Holtz said in a recent interview. “He’s a gem.
He’s one of those special gifts.”
Homecoming for Harmon
Tulsa is a
new destination for most of the Pirates, but senior tight end Sean Harmon
will be going home when he joins his team to take on the Golden Hurricanes
this weekend.
A native
of Edmond, near Tulsa, Harmon said that he doesn't know how he’ll be
received by the Skelly Stadium crowd.
“I don’t
know how it’s going to be when I get there,” Harmon said. “I don’t know if
they’re going to embrace me or boo me or what. But I’m here for East
Carolina. I’m here to do what they need me to do, and we need to go in there
and get a W. That’s all that matters.”
Harmon
is one of 23 seniors on the roster, and as team leaders they are pointing to
the Tulsa game as all-important if any bowl hopes are to remain. Harmon’s
emergence as a force on the ECU offense is enabling Holtz and offensive
coordinator Steve Shankweiler to give strong consideration to offensive sets
that feature two tight ends, Holtz said last week.
Despite
the fact that he is far from home and has played under two different coaches
in as many years, Harmon is confident that he is concluding his college
career in the right place.
“I
couldn’t picture myself being anywhere with anyone else,” he said. “This
program’s been great to me.”
Like the
ECU football team, the volleyball team has three games remaining on its
schedule. But that’s where the similarities end, because the Pirate
volleyballers have a chance to post the program’s best record in more than
20 years.
'Big Foot' sighted at ECU
Robert
Lee, perhaps the most reliable element of the ECU offensive scheme, has
caught the attention of the voters for the
Lou Groza Award, given annually to the best kicker in the NCAA. As one of 20
semifinalists for the award, Lee was honored for his consistency in making
12-of-14 field goals this season that, along with his 21 extra points, make
him the Pirates’ leading scorer.
Charlottesville
connection
When the
ECU basketball team faced off against the Virginia Cavaliers Saturday in a
closed-door scrimmage, it marked only the second time those two teams have
met on the hardwood. The first game, played in December of 1968, ended in an
88-79 Pirates loss. Considering the strides athletic director Terry Holland
has made in
scheduling prominent non-conference opponents in
football and his connection to the University of Virginia, it
seems likely that the scrimmage meeting will not be the last.
Pirates 'net' success
Under new
head coach Chris Rushing, the volleyball team is now 16-10 and 7-6 in
Conference USA. If they win their last three matches, the 19 wins would be
the second-most in Pirate volleyball history, topped only by the 24
victories collected by the 1982 team.
Several
stellar individual performances have helped bring the Lady Pirates to this
point. Junior setter Heidi Krug has recorded 1.254 assists this season and
needs just 15 more assists to set the single-season school record in that
category, and Pam Ferris became just the sixth player in ECU history with
more than 1,000 kills in a season with an 11-kill night against Central
Florida on Friday.
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02/23/2007 01:11:51 AM |
