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BAILEY'S
TAKE ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the
Anchor Desk
Tuesday,
May 24, 2011
By Brian
Bailey |
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Hosting snub fueled Lady
Pirates
By
Brian Bailey
©2011 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
Tracey Kee and her East
Carolina softball team battled the top seed in the College Park Regional
in two very close games.
Baylor shut out the Lady
Pirates in both of those games. Both contests followed ECU wins over
Maryland, the host school.
The Lady Pirates would
have loved to have hosted the regional. Kee used that fact to help
motivate her team.
“It was our chip on our
shoulder,” said Kee. “With our facility we thought we could have hosted
as the two seed. So we went out and played like it.”
That they did.
ECU senior pitcher Toni
Paisley picked up her
117th and
118th career victories in the
wins over the Lady Terrapins. Paisley finishes her college career as the
all-time Conference USA leader in wins, innings pitched, appearances and
strike outs.
Paisley also went toe to
toe with the nation’s 11th ranked team.
“The
first game with Baylor was just
a great pitching performance for both teams,” said Kee.
Kee went on to say that
her young team should reap the benefits of the regional experience down
the line.
The Lady Pirates were a
young team this year, led by one of the nation’s top pitchers.
But who will replace Toni
Paisley?
“We were talking about
that as a staff," acknowledged Kee. "We’ve got some people coming in and
in the program that we think will be fine."
"But I would hate to come
in and have to take over for her,” Kee joked.
Pirates plan
Mississippi business trip
Billy Godwin and the East
Carolina baseball squad take the momentum of a sweep over Tulane into
this week’s
Conference USA tournament.
The Pirates, the No. 3
seed, are is matched up with Houston, Tulane and Southern Miss in their
bracket.
The team with the best
record in the bracket advances to Saturday’s championship game.
East Carolina opens the
tournament with a game against Houston on Wednesday afternoon. Shawn
Armstrong will get the start in the opener.
Armstrong got the series
clinching win over the Cougars earlier this season. He went five innings
and gave up just two runs and six hits. He struck out eight in
the 12-2 victory.
Michael Wright will start
on the mound for East Carolina on Thursday against Tulane. Wright and
Brad Mincey combined on a two-hitter in
the Pirate’s 5-1 series opening win
over Tulane last Thursday.
ECU ace Seth Maness will
then start against No. 2 seed Southern Miss on Friday. Maness got the
victory in the third game of the series with the Golden Eagles. In that
game the Pirates built a 7-0 lead, and then held on for
the 7-6 victory.
That would leave southpaw
Kevin Brandt to start the championship game on Saturday, if the Pirates
get that far.
“We don’t really have a
lefty out of the pen,” said Godwin. “So you may see him early and things
could change. That’s our plan right now.”
Godwin is adamant that his
team is in Mississippi this week for only one reason.
“We are here to win a
championship,” said Godwin. “I told our players when we got here that
we’re not here to improve our position with the NCAA Tournament or
anything else. We came here to win the Conference USA championship.”
The Pirates open play on
Wednesday at 5 p.m. against Houston.
BB
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Brian Bailey Archives
05/27/2011 12:25 AM |
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