ECU baseball to host first NCAA Regional on campus

Despite being knocked out of the C-USA tournament last weekend after just three games, the ECU baseball team is hoping to turn the page and start fresh as they pursue a much bigger goal: Omaha.

The city of Greenville and Clark-LeClair Stadium, will make its NCAA Tournament debut as the No.1 seed Pirates play host to No. 2 seed South Carolina, No. 3 seed George Mason and No.4 seed Binghamton starting Friday in Regional play.

While this weekend will mark the first time ECU has hosted a regional on campus, the Pirates have hosted regional action twice before. In 2001, the Diamond Bucs took home regional honors after producing a 3-0 mark at Fleming Stadium in Wilson.

For Super Regional play, as well as 2004 regional action, Grainger Stadium in Kinston was occupied as the Pirates home turf.

ECU head coach Billy Godwin knows how much a little home cooking can mean, as the only times the Pirates have reached the next round is when they hosted Regional action in 2001 and 2004.

"It's important to play at home, it's something we've talked about in our program for two or three years" said Head Coach Billy Godwin. "We needed to get a host here, that's the reason that stadium was built."

The Pirates were chosen as one of the nations 16 regional hosts. Each site features four teams and will utilize a double elimination format.

Slotted as the number one seed, ECU (42-17) will begin its trek as they face off against Binghamton (29-20) Friday at 7 p.m. South Carolina (38-21) will square off with George Mason (42-12) Friday at 3 p.m.

Friday's matchup will be ECU's first encounter with Binghamton. In contrast, the Pirates are quite familiar with both South Carolina and George Mason. ECU holds a 43-30 overall record against the Patriots, but trails the Gamecocks 4-15.

But when you make it to the tournament, Godwin knows his squad will go up against the best of the best.

"When you get to this point, you're going to play good teams," said Godwin. "It's going to be a good challenge, but we like that we're at home."

The Pirates had a successful regular season working their way into the polls, while putting together a 42-win season that featured a Conference USA regular season title.

Their stellar season was highlighted by wins over C-USA foe Rice and instate rival North Carolina when each was ranked No.1 in the country.

The key to defending home tough and marching on to Super Regional's play, is the Pirates ability to work hard defensively while playing every game to the pinnacle of their potential.

The latter was something the Diamond Bucs was unable to accomplish last week in a disappointing C-USA tournament. After a 6-3 victory over UCF to start the tourney, ECU dropped a 5-2 contest to Southern Miss. before being sent home with a 3-0 loss to Tulane.

Now, the Pirates are looking forward to earning redemption.

"We need to bounce back (from the C-USA tourney)," ECU senior second baseman Ryan Wood said. "We kind of have an extra chance here."

ECU's first match up, the Binghamton Bearcats, won 29 games this season as well as snagging the American East Conference title. The Bearcats will be making their first regional appearance.

George Mason sported a 42-win season and fell one game short of the CAA Conference Championship.

South Carolina is a school enriched in baseball tradition and fell only two wins shy of a 40 win season. In the SEC Tournament the Gamecocks fell to conference champ LSU.

USC is one of eight SEC teams to receive bids to the NCAA Tournament. The Gamecock faithful are well known for traveling and will surely be out in full force in the stands of Clark LeClair this weekend.

No matter the foe, ECU is equipped with a strong offensive prowess that has shutdown many of the nations top teams. The Pirates now look forward to playing at home and are excited to represent ECU this coming weekend.

"We're going to worry about going 1-0 on Friday and we'll take it from there," Godwin said.

This writer can be contacted at sports@theeastcarolinian.com.