Good Start
March 26, 2007 02:10 PM | General
March 26, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Playing an unbalanced Big East schedule this year, it was important for the West Virginia University baseball team to get off to a good start in conference play. Winning three games against Seton Hall last weekend exceeded Coach Greg Van Zant’s wildest expectations.
 |
||
| Sophomore centerfielder Adam White leads West Virginia with a .410 batting average.
All-Pro Photography Dale Sparks |
“My mindset has always been trying to win one before you can win the next one,” Van Zant said. “We were fortunate to win game one. They hit the home run in the top of the 13th and we go to the bottom of the 13th and our first two hitters make outs.
“Vince Belnome hits a dribbler over the pitcher and they throw it away. Austin Markel gets a base hit to score Belnome; they walk Jason Pape and Adam White hits a hard grounder that their second baseman can’t make a play on and we win the game. That’s unbelievable.”
It took West Virginia and Seton Hall (5-12) more than eight hours to play both games on Saturday. On Sunday, the two teams played crisper baseball until the ninth inning when Pirate reliever Dan McDonald disintegrated, eventually losing the game on a wild pitch trying to intentionally walk Tyler Kuhn.
“That’s a tough way to lose,” Van Zant admitted.
West Virginia’s three-game sweep of Seton Hall puts the Mountaineers at the top of the Big East standings. WVU has won 12 of its last 15 games against a struggling Seton Hall program, but Van Zant believes the Pirates are a much stronger ball club this year.
“They have three really good starting pitchers,” Van Zant said. “It’s pretty miraculous that we were able to win all three games.”
Sunday’s starter Sean Black was the highest drafted player to go to college this year. Black, the 59th player picked in the second round last June, chose to attend Seton Hall instead of signing with the Washington Nationals.
“(Black) is really good but the two lefties they threw in games one and two were also good,” Van Zant said. “They just haven’t been drafted as high. (Dan) Merklinger, the kid who pitched game two, pitched in the Cape Cod League this summer and he’ll probably be a Top 5 round draft pick.”
The Mountaineers got encouraging performances last weekend from several players. Second baseman Jason Pape drove in six runs in WVU's 12-5, game-two victory over the Pirates and boosted his season batting average to .316; Austin Markel slammed a big two-run home run in the fifth inning of Sunday’s game and true freshman Chris Enourato came into Sunday’s game with the bases loaded in the sixth and got out of the jam, eventually winning his first career game.
“It’s pretty amazing what Chris Enourato did on Sunday,” Van Zant said. “We put a true freshman into the game with the bases loaded in his first-ever Big East game and he gets us out of a big jam.”
West Virginia (13-5) has one of the better records in college baseball but has done so against a schedule ranked 285th so far, according to the college baseball RPI web site WarrenNolan.com. Three of the Mountaineers’ five losses this year have come against Cleveland State, Duquesne and St. Bonaventure. Those three have a combined 18-34 record so far.
“We’ve played consistently well,” Van Zant said. “We lost a game to Cleveland State because they threw a lefty that we tried to recruit and he pitched a great game against us. The Duquesne loss came after we had just swept Hartford four games and we were playing our fifth game in four days. Our guys were a little tired but Duquesne beat us. They are not a bad team this year.”
Van Zant admits that he is still searching for more production from a couple of spots in the lineup.
“We’ve just got to get more offense out of our first baseman and our DH,” he said. “We’ve been playing (Jordon) Yost at first and DH’ing (Mike) Schmidt against lefties and DH’ing (Brent) Lockhart against right handers. And we definitely haven’t given up on Mike Burger. He was our DH the last third of the season last year.
“We’re not going to lead the country in home runs but we’ve got pretty good team speed,” Van Zant said. “We can go catch some fly balls that might fall in with a slower team. We’ve got a pretty good outfield with (Justin) Jenkins in left, (Adam) White in center who I think is the best centerfielder in college baseball, and Markel in right who is a 6.8 or 6.7 runner.”
After witnessing last weekend’s effort, the 13th-year coach believes his young team is making progress.
“We’ve improved tremendously from the first day of the fall and even from the month of January and February,” he said. “These kids are very unselfish and we’ve got really good leadership.
“We’ve also got a pretty experienced pitching staff,” Van Zant said. “We run (Matt) Yurish out there in game one, and then Levi Maxwell in game two and Kenny Durst on Sunday. Kenny is a pretty good pitcher to have out there on the third day; he knows how to pitch.”
After a doubleheader against Canisius (4-17) on Tuesday, West Virginia has a three-game conference series at Louisville (16-8) this weekend. Following that is a three-game Big East series at South Florida (18-8). Those six Big East games will probably give Van Zant a better read on where his team sits with the rest of the conference.
“If we can go there and win one game at those two places then we’ve done well,” Van Zant said. “If we can do that then we’ll try and win two.”
West Virginia plays 15 conference road games this year compared to only 12 at home; the Mountaineers don’t play Pitt or Rutgers. The top eight teams qualify for the Big East tournament.
“You feel like you have to win two out of three at home,” Van Zant said. “If you can’t win your home series how are you going to win your road series?
“We’ve got a lot of work to do but at least we got off to the best start that we possibly could,” Van Zant said.
