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News Nuggets, 06.23.05
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

WNCT: ECU to reveal football scheduling deals

Greenville radio station WNCT-AM Talk 1070 and Cable 7 Television got the jump on Thursday's high-profile East Carolina press conference.

Henry Hinton, the stations' chief executive, said Wednesday on his daily drive-time show that ECU would announce a number of new football scheduling agreements with prominent teams in the region, including one series with an opponent that has never appeared on the Pirates' slate.

Hinton is also a regular columnist for Bonesville.net.

Hinton reported on Talk of the Town (REPLAY THE AUDIO ARCHIVE), which is simulcast over Talk 1070 and Cable 7 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. each weekday and streamed live on the Internet over Bonesville.net, that East Carolina has secured contracts ranging up to 8 years in duration for games with Atlantic Coast Conference members N.C. State, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Virginia and independent Navy.

The ECU athletic department had alerted media members earlier this week that athletic director Terry Holland would conduct a Thursday luncheon briefing in which he would announce "a significant development regarding the future of the ECU football program."

The notification indicated that both Holland and ECU head football coach Skip Holtz would offer comments after the formal briefing.

Hinton, citing a reliable source, said on Talk of the Town that the new scheduling agreements would be a focal point of the briefing.

The deals would include home and away games as well as a potential match-up in Charlotte against Virginia Tech, Hinton added.

Such a development would achieve a major objective outlined by Holland not long after his appointment last September as ECU's AD. The former Virginia basketball coach and athletic director proclaimed as a high priority the cultivation of scheduling relationships with prominent nearby teams.

One of those pending relationships, according to Hinton, will be with Virginia, where Holland gained national prominence and established important contacts around the college sports world as basketball coach and athletic director.

East Carolina has played UVa in football only once, when Pat Dye's 1975 Pirates traveled to Charlottesville and dealt the Cavaliers of former ECU coach Sonny Randle a 61-10 defeat — a scenario unlikely to be repeated in Virginia's new era of powerhouse football.

The reported series with the Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, MD, would be the first between the schools and would be in keeping with Holland's stated goal of procuring games with respected regional opponents that would be of compelling interest to fans.

ECU's experience in its series with former Conference USA rival Army would support the notion that a series with the Midshipmen could be a big draw. Eastern North Carolina's numerous military bases, including the Army's massive installation at Fort Bragg, helped produce two of the top ten crowds in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium history to see the Pirates play the Black Knights in 1998 and 2000.

In scheduling the series between their programs, Holland and Navy officials likely took into strong consideration that the largest cluster of naval installations in the world lies between Annapolis and Greenville in Tidewater Virginia, an area that is home to tens of thousands of Navy-connected families as well as one of the largest contingents of ECU alumni outside North Carolina.

The Pirates have documented histories of highly-attended games with N.C. State, North Carolina and Virginia Tech, but the prospects and potential terms of renewing the three series had been clouded by multiple issues, including the scheduling complexities associated with the ACC's recent expansion. The firming up of long-term schedules with the schools would provide ECU the driving-distance rivalries it needs to anchor its non-conference schedule and to balance the air-travel regimen the Pirates and their fans face in conjunction with Conference USA games.

C-USA, which spans three time zones encompassing schools from western Texas to the Atlantic Coast, annually provides the Pirates an avenue to earn a berth in one of the postseason bowls affiliated with the league. But C-USA affords ECU no natural rivalries with teams as close by as those that will be parties to the contracts WNCT-AM says will be announced in Holland's Thursday media briefing.

UAB (Birmingham, AL), Marshall (Huntingdon, WV) and Central Florida (Orlando) are the nearest to Greenville of the Dallas, Texas-based league's 12 teams. The newly-reconfigured conference's other schools are Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg), Memphis, Tulane (New Orleans, LA), Houston, Rice (Houston, TX), Southern Methodist (Dallas), Tulsa (OK) and Texas-El Paso.

Horns advance; ASU forces rematch with Gators

ARIZONA STATE 6, FLORIDA 1

OMAHA — Erik Averill strong-armed Florida on Wednesday, and now Arizona State is within a victory of the championship round of the College World Series.

Working on two days' rest, Averill threw a five-hitter in 92-degree heat, retiring the last eight batters for his fifth complete game of the season in a 6-1 victory over Florida.

``He told me before the game, 'I'm going nine.' I listened to him,'' ASU coach Pat Murphy said.

The Sun Devils (42-24), who came into the CWS with the fewest wins of any team in the field, have won three straight after losing in the first round, and are 5-0 in NCAA tournament elimination games.

They have to beat the seventh-seeded Gators (47-21) again Thursday to advance to the best-of-three championship series that starts Saturday against Texas, which earned its way into the final set for the second year in a row by defeating Baylor 4-3 Wednesday night.

``It's a tough loss, as all losses are,'' Florida coach Pat McMahon said. ``Erik pitched very, very well for them. He did a masterful job of keeping us off-stride.''

Averill's outing was a help to a relief corps that had worked 16 1-3 of ASU's 26 previous innings. The relievers were allowed to stay back at the team hotel until a half-hour before the game.

``My mind-set going in was to get as many innings as I could because our bullpen has been a little tired,'' Averill said. ``I just tried to put the ball in play and let our defense take care of it.''

The 20th-round draft pick of the Detroit Tigers had thrown 76 pitches in 5 2-3 innings of the Sun Devils' 4-2 win over Tennessee on Sunday. He threw 113 against the Gators, striking out seven and not allowing a walk.

``I was a little tired the first five innings, but then I got a second wind,'' Averill said. ``You never really know how much your body will give you until you ask it.''

The game was played less than 24 hours after Arizona State's dramatic 11-inning win over Nebraska, highlighted by Jeff Larish's CWS record-tying three home runs.

Unlike that game, the Sun Devils led from early-on against the Gators.

TEXAS 4, BAYLOR 3

OMAHA — Texas is going back to the championship round of the College World Series, thanks to a ninth-inning homer from sore-shouldered Chance Wheeless.

Wheeless hit one over the fence, one inning after teammate Nick Peoples ran over Baylor catcher Josh Ford to score the tying run in an emotional 4-3 victory Wednesday night that eliminated the Bears.

``I'm shocked a little bit,'' Wheeless said. ``It all turned around with one swing. This is unbelievable for me.''

Texas, unbeaten in three CWS games, will now play the winner of Thursday's Arizona State-Florida rematch in the best-of-three championship series beginning Saturday at Rosenblatt Stadium. The Sun Devils defeated the Gators 6-1 earlier Wednesday to force a final showdown between the two teams.

In his sixth-inning at-bat, Wheeless was in so much pain from his shoulder popping out that he didn't run out his grounder to second base.

But Wheeless urged Texas coach Augie Garrido to let him bat in the ninth after Garrido told him he was thinking about using a pinch-hitter.

``He said, `I hit this guy hard, I'll be OK,''' Garrido said. `When he hit the home run, I thanked him and his mother and father and their mothers and fathers and anybody who had anything to do with Chance being on this planet.''

But Wheeless would never have been in position to hit the game winner off Ryan LaMotta if Peoples hadn't bowled over Ford in a violent collision to score on a sacrifice fly.

In the eighth with Texas trailing 3-2, Peoples went from first to third when LaMotta made an errant pickoff throw.

Peoples raced home on Drew Stubbs' sacrifice fly to right, beating Seth Fortenberry's strong throw by barreling over Ford, who was to the left of the plate before the ball arrived.

With the ball loose, Peoples crawled and touched the plate and then slammed down his helmet.

``The umpire told me I interfered,'' Ford said. ``I thought the play was closer than he thought. He hit me and the ball popped loose.''

Baylor coach Steve Smith came out of the dugout for an explanation.

``I didn't argue that call. It's a tough call,'' Smith said. ``I did think the non-slide was flagrant because he came in high. It's a must-slide rule, so I thought there should have been an ejection.''

Baylor (46-24), making its first CWS appearance since 1978, had reached Wednesday's play with a thrilling comeback win over Tulane on Tuesday night, rallying from a 7-0 deficit for an 8-7 victory.

This time it was the Bears who were eliminated with a crushing defeat. They had two runners on in the top of the ninth before Texas turned a double play on a fly ball.

``Anytime you lose a one-run game in the bottom of the ninth like that, it hurts,'' Ford said. ``It doesn't matter if it's here or in the second game of the season.''

News Nuggets are compiled periodically based on material supplied by staff members; data published by ECU, Conference USA and its member schools; and reports from Associated Press and other sources. Copyright 2005 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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