Home > BLARRGH! > Archives > 2009 > June > 07 > Entry
End of the road….
As a Pirate fan, it’s tough to find any silver linings two game sweep of ECU in the Chapel Hill Super Regional. The best of three series that serves as the entrance exam to Omaha shows that while East Carolina has had a very strong season and have outpaced most fan expectations, it was the Tarheels who passed the test.
The Diamond Bucs were out-pitched and out-hit in the series, with the two Tarheel Aces getting out of early jams in their respective games to shut the door to Omaha for ECU and claim their fourth consecutive berth in the CWS.
Sometime in the future, Head Coach Billy Godwin and his team can look back on a season that boasted the most wins in his four year tenure in Greenville (46), and ties for the third most wins in program history. There’s also their regular season championship (their second in CUSA), a trip to the round of 16 for only the third time and an offensive performance that rivals most any team in history to wear the Purple.
But not yet. It’s too soon. This should hurt for a while.
It was also a year of tragedy, as the ECU program lost a long time supporter and local hero Les Garner. Mr. Garner’s presence was sorely missed as the crooner for the ‘Take me out to the ballgame’ rendition that was the hallmark of the seventh inning stretch at CLS, but to those close to the program and the City of Greenville, he meant a lot more.
This year’s model of the Baseball Pirates stand to lose a good deal of their offensive firepower in next week’s MLB draft. Brandon Henderson, Ryan Wood, Stephen Batts, Devin Harris and Kyle Roller are among the names that could be called.
If there’s one character trait of Billy Godwin though, it’s reloading. Each year the Pirates have done just a little better than the year before. But this year’s team will be tough to out do.
It’s true that a number of ECU’s promising pitching staff will return next year, Seth Maness, Kevin Brandt and Seth Simmons among them. Also young Bucs like Trent Whitehead, Dustin Harrington and Corey Thompson have given us a glimpse of a promising future.
But for now, it’s the end of road. The Pirates are headed back East and the Tarheels are again headed West. The Pirates can get some rest and enjoy their summer for a bit before heading off to Summer League. Pirate fans lucky enough to have tickets for the Super Regional in Chapel Hill will no longer have to endure the inordinately assertive “Tar - Heels” cheer, but I was enlightened to know that apparently, ‘Heels’ is a two-syllable word.
Happy Appy is now officially on the clock (2,160 hours and counting). Time for me to dust off my copy of National Lampoon’s Vacation and settle into the summer. After spending what seems like the last four months at the CLS, I might also need to go and try and find my wife. She’s been a patient soul throughout all this.
I hope she’s around here somewhere.
Comments
By JIM ADAMS
June 8, 2009 5:32 PM | Link to this
ABOUT NEXT YEAR?,THE WILDER KID THAT PLAYED AT ROSE LAST YEAR,WAS HE REDSHIRTED THIS YEAR?