The Stretch Run
May 04, 2006 03:13 PM | General
May 4, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The beauty of having an eight-team conference tournament, says West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant, is that all 12 teams are still in contention for post-season play. In the past, only four teams qualified for the Big East tournament, meaning about half the league would have already been eliminated.
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| Senior Stan Posluszny leads West Virginia with 13 multiple RBI games this year.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
This weekend, two teams right in the thick of things will hook up in Washington, D.C., when West Virginia takes on Georgetown. The Mountaineers (9-9) are in fifth place in the Big East standings while Georgetown (7-11) is ninth, one game in the loss column behind eighth-place South Florida.
“This makes for a much more exciting regular season and it gives everybody a chance to play hard all the way to the end,” Van Zant said. “Even (last place) Seton Hall still has a chance to make the playoffs.”
In past years, Van Zant admits there were some teams simply playing out their schedules with nothing to look forward to.
“If a team at the very bottom is done, a certain team would play another team at the bottom and they wouldn’t get the same effort (at the end of the year),” he said. “They might give a team three wins versus you playing them earlier and they were playing harder.
“This makes things fair for the final standings to reflect the true rankings of all the teams,” he said.
After a tough stretch that saw West Virginia lose nine straight including seven consecutive conference games, the Mountaineers have taken two out of three from both Louisville and Villanova to get their league record back to .500. Van Zant says his team was able to weather the storm.
“You can look at things however you want to look at them,” he said. “We’ve won four of our last six or somebody else might look at it and say we’ve won four of our last 15. I’m looking at it the other way.”
West Virginia (29-15) had a chance to sweep Villanova last Sunday, capturing the first two games and coming from behind to take an 8-7 lead late in game three, but five runs by the Wildcats in the eighth and ninth innings helped them pull out a 12-9 victory.
“Before the weekend we would have been thrilled to get two out of three but after you win those first two you’re sensing a sweep,” Van Zant said. “Give Villanova credit, they battled and hung in there and swung the bat. We walked and hit 13 guys and that was the difference.”
WVU pitchers have been both hot and cold, walking 11 batters in a game twice this season and walking 190 in 382 innings so far. The Mountaineers are 10-8 in games in which they walk five or more batters, but are just 1-7 in those games since April 7.
“We’ve got a lot of young pitchers going through the Big East for the first time and they’ve all thrown well at times and they’ve also struggled at times,” Van Zant said. “They have to learn and move on.”
This weekend, West Virginia is facing a much different Georgetown team than in past years. The Hoyas are 21-26 overall and are coming off a series win at South Florida last weekend. Georgetown is 13-7 at home this year.
“It’s going to be a big challenge,” Van Zant said. “The old Georgetown team doesn’t go to South Florida and win two out of three. They’re in the mix for the playoffs and I’m sure they’ll play hard. For us to win, we’re not only going to have to play hard but also play well.”
Georgetown is the only team to beat No. 8-rated Notre Dame in conference play, knocking off the Irish 8-3 in the Big East opener at home.
“They’ve got good pitching, they swing the bat and they play very well at home,” Van Zant said.
The Mountaineers were able to get a couple of days off to concentrate on finals at the beginning of the week and will travel to Georgetown on Friday.
“They needed a break,” Van Zant said. “The vast majority of their finals are now behind them.”
Saturday’s doubleheader has been pushed back to a 5 pm start with Sunday’s single game set to start at noon. All three games will be available on CSTV GameTracker.
