Tournament Tested?
May 21, 2006 11:05 PM | General
May 21, 2006
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| Casey Bowling | Doug Nelms | Stan Posluszny |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It will be an experience for the West Virginia University baseball team when it takes on St. John’s in the first round of the Big East tournament Tuesday evening. That’s because virtually the entire Mountaineer team has no Big East tournament experience.
West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant would prefer his team be tournament tested, but he recalled his first Big East tournament team in 1996 running the table without any prior experience.
“We didn’t go into that tournament knowing we could win it,” he said. “We kept playing one day at a time and before we knew it we were on the last day with a chance to win. We didn’t even qualify for the tournament until the very last pitch of the regular season against Connecticut.”
Only senior right fielder Stan Posluszny and reserve pitcher Ryan Lipscomb saw action in West Virginia’s last Big East game in 2003 when it was knocked out in the semifinals by Rutgers, 8-7.
The Scarlet Knights came back from a big deficit to win and land the conference’s NCAA tournament at-large berth instead of the Mountaineers.
“That was hard to watch because we led for most of the game,” Posluszny remembered. “We came out there and played as hard as we could and unfortunately it didn’t work out for us that year.”
Senior shortstop Doug Nelms and senior left fielder Casey Bowling also experienced the disappointment of that loss as freshmen watching from the dugout.
“I remember seeing our seniors’ faces,” said Nelms. “I don’t want to go out with that feeling. I want to be the team that is in the dog pile on the mound.”
Bowling says he’s happy to be playing in a postseason game for the first time in his career.
“This is not a chance we’ve gotten every season,” said Bowling. “It’s an opportunity where you have a chance to do something very special and you need to take advantage of these opportunities.”
All three admit the excitement and intensity really magnifies in tournament play.
“You’re going to have the best umpires and you’re going to see everybody’s best pitchers,” Nelms said. “Instead of holding them to a pitch count, they may throw 160 pitches if they’re pitching well.”
Bowling agrees, “The game is important and it’s more important than regular season games but you still have to stay on an even keel and not try and do too much because we are playing on a bigger stage. If you press and try and do too much that’s when you make mistakes and end up burying yourself.”
Nelms says those at-bats a player may have taken for granted during the regular season now become critical in postseason play.
“You get 250 at-bats and there are times late in the game when you’re in your fourth at-bat and you’re kind of just messing around,” he said. “When you get into postseason play you can’t mess around. The fourth at-bat could be the difference between winning the Big East championship or not. You have got to figure out a way to stay focused for the entire game.”
Notre Dame naturally has the advantage this year winning four straight tournament titles, but Posluszny believes playing in Clearwater, Fla., brings the Irish closer to the rest of the field.
“Nobody knows what this park is like,” he said. “None of the pitchers have been on the mound and none of the players have stepped into the box and hit in this place before.”
“Before when we were in New Jersey we had St. John’s, Rutgers and Notre Dame and all those teams had the advantage over us,” Nelms said. “Now the only team that has an (home field) advantage is South Florida.”
The Bulls are also used to the Florida heat and humidity teams are going to experience this week.
“The rest of the pitchers were pitching in 58, 50 or 48-degree weather,” said Van Zant. “It’s a little different when you put the sunshine on them with high humidity. It feels like you’re sitting in your parked car in the middle of the summer.
“A pitcher that maybe went eight or nine innings last weekend may tire after six innings this week,” said the coach.
Posluszny, who went 2 for 6 in his only tournament appearance as a freshman, says he’s not concerned with the heat.
“That’s why we play summer ball,” he shrugged. “That’s when I get used to playing anyway.”
Nelms believes all eight teams are capable of taking home the trophy.
“There is a lot of parity in this league,” he said. “Teams are evenly matched. We’re in a pretty tough bracket with Notre Dame, St. John’s and South Florida so we’ve got our hands full.
“But our guys need to understand that we can win this thing,” Nelms said. “We lost a couple of games this weekend against South Florida but I think we can do well in this tournament and really make a name for ourselves.”
