Break out the Bats
February 01, 2008 04:32 PM | General
February 1, 2008
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| Greg Van Zant |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The playing field in college baseball is finally becoming level. For the first time ever all teams cannot start practicing until Friday, Feb. 1, and cannot play a game until Feb. 22. That date represents opening day in college baseball for 2008.
“This is the first year in the history of college baseball that all of the teams are starting on the same day,” said West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant. “There were teams down south bringing back their players the day after Christmas and they were outside on the field from December 26 on.”
Often southern teams would have 10-12 games already in the books before the northern teams opened its seasons.
“The days are over when you were opening with a team from the south and they were 12 games into their schedule before you played your first game and it was also your first day outside,” said Van Zant.
Tonight is the first time Van Zant gets to work with a remodeled team that features 18 freshmen. The veteran coach says it’s the youngest team he’s ever began a season with.
“Of our 34 players we’ve got four seniors and six juniors,” Van Zant said. “This is the smallest group of upperclassmen that I’ve ever had. We’ve got 18 freshmen and 10 of them are true freshmen.”
Youth doesn’t necessary equate a lack of talent, however. Van Zant expects several freshmen to crack this year’s line up including hard-hitting University High product Jedd Gyorko, whom Van Zant is going to pencil in near the top of the batting order and play second base.
“If they’re good we’re getting them in there,” Van Zant said.
Tyler Kuhn was drafted in the 34th round last year but opted to return to college for his senior season. The shortstop batted .332 with five home runs and 21 extra base hits. He is expected to bat leadoff.
Following Gyorko in the number two spot, the rest of the line up could be comprised of sophomore third baseman Vince Belnome, who batted .355 in 39 games before a knee injury prematurely ended his season.
Chris Enourato can also play third when he’s not closing games on the mound and might wind up being the team’s designated hitter and batting clean up. Enourato hit .250 last year in limited action but is coming off a strong summer season in the Valley League.
“Enourato is such a clutch RBI guy,” Van Zant said. “The kid is just a competitor.”
The rest of the line up could look like this: Potomac State transfer Joe Agreste playing first base and batting fifth, junior Austin Markel playing right field and hitting sixth, Grant Buckner or Dan DiBartolomeo playing left and batting seventh, either Justin Parks or Tobias Streich catching and batting eighth, and redshirt freshman Mark Dvoroznak playing centerfield and hitting ninth.
“Catcher is going to be a position where those two players play a lot,” said Van Zant. “We have two really good catchers. They both bring a lot to the table and there is no reason to catch just one guy every game.
“We’re going to have a drop off in the outfield offensively because we lost a ninth-round draft pick in centerfield (Adam White) and a third-team All-American in leftfield (Justin Jenkins),” Van Zant said. “We are probably going to play two redshirt freshmen in those spots so there is no way you can expect them to match what Jenkins and White did last year.”
Van Zant likes the versatility he has with his lineup and the fact that he’s got suitable defensive players to man all eight positions in the field.
“We have a pretty good baseball player at every position,” Van Zant admitted. “We’ve had some years when we had a first baseman having to play second or we just didn’t have a third baseman or was short a guy. We don’t have that this year.”
On the mound, Van Zant has two proven pitchers returning in senior lefthander Matt Yurish and junior righthander Josh Whitlock. They most likely will be the top two pitchers when the Mountaineers begin conference play.
“If those two guys go out and pitch like they are capable of we should have a chance each time they go out there,” Van Zant said. “Enourato I really like putting him in there at the end of the game. He is such a competitor and he wants the ball. I want to get him out there as many times as possible.”
The number three starter could either be hard-throwing sophomore Billy Gross or Old Dominion transfer Ross Fetterly. After that, the most likely candidates for hill time are senior lefthander Eric Saffell, Walters State transfer Bobby Thompson, mid-semester transfer Stephen Morrison and freshman Jarryd Summers.
“He’s about 6-5 and he weighs about 205-210 and he can get it up to 90-91 on our gun,” Van Zant said of Summers. “He really wants to pitch and we’re going to get him in there as we can.”
The Mountaineers open the 2008 campaign with a four-game series against Akron beginning on Friday, Feb. 22. West Virginia will also make a weekend trip to Myrtle Beach to face Western Carolina, Marshall, Coastal Carolina and George Mason before opening at home on March 4 against Duquesne.
WVU also has non-league games against Valparaiso, St. Bonaventure, Iona and Canisius before starting Big East play against Pitt at Hawley Field March 20-22.
“We’re picked 10th in the league by just about everybody and that’s probably about where we deserved to be based on what we did last year,” Van Zant said. “I think we’re going to surprise some people because we have some talent and our players will work hard and have a great attitude.”
Briefly:
“We’re going to have 20 hours a week with them now and we’ve got to get a lot of repetitions,” Van Zant said. “We’ve got to get a lot of ground balls. We’re going to hit a lot. Our pitchers are going to throw off the mounds. They will be throwing in a simulated 32-pitch game in about a week and a half from now.”
“That’s going to be weekend one. Weekend two we’re going to go back to Myrtle Beach,” Van Zant said. “The tournament that we are in that is hosted by Coastal Carolina is a great tournament.
“This year we’ve got Western Carolina, which were Southern Conference champions, Coastal Carolina, which were the Big South champions and were a No. 1 seed in a regional, and then the other teams are George Mason and Marshall. Next year the teams in the same tournament are Tennessee, Kansas, Florida International, Oklahoma State, Coastal Carolina and West Virginia.”
