Baseball Notebook
May 18, 2009 04:37 PM | General
May 18, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rain has already claimed Monday night’s opening ceremonies for the 2009 Big East baseball tournament, and more showers are predicted for Tuesday.
Third-seeded West Virginia (36-16) is scheduled to face sixth-seeded Connecticut (33-23) in the first game of the second session at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. The Mountaineers swept the Huskies in a three-game series in Storrs back in mid-March, but UConn has won six of its last nine conference games to qualify for postseason play.
“We are going to have our hands full with Connecticut,” said West Virginia coach Greg Van Zant. “We were really impressed with their pitchers when we faced them up at Connecticut.”
The Mountaineers are making their eighth Big East tournament appearance since joining the league in 1996; WVU has qualified three out of the last four years. It will be just the third time West Virginia has opened the conference tournament without facing either Notre Dame or St. John’s in the first round.
West Virginia’s No. 3 seeding is also its highest since it earned a No. 2 seeding in the 2003 tournament. After falling 9-1 to Notre Dame in the 2003 tournament opener, WVU managed to defeat Virginia Tech, 10-0, before falling to Rutgers, 8-7, in an elimination game.
West Virginia’s only Big East tournament title came during its first season of membership in 1996 (Van Zant’s second year as WVU’s coach) when the Mountaineers knocked off Notre Dame in the championship game, 7-4, in Norwich, Conn.
West Virginia is 9-13 all-time in Big East tournament play.
Tournament Notes
Here are the rest of the league’s updated RPIs, according to WarrenNolan.com:
No. 2 USF (71)
No. 3 West Virginia (93)
No. 4 St. John’s (103)
No. 5 Notre Dame (61)
No. 6 Connecticut (87)
No. 7 Pitt (115)
No. 8 Cincinnati (116)
Louisville will play eighth-seeded Cincinnati in the second game of the first session Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. Fourth-seeded St. John’s will battle fifth-seeded Notre Dame in the opening game of the tournament at 10 a.m.
Second-seeded USF will take on seventh-seeded Pitt in the nightcap at 8 p.m.
However, West Virginia ranks second to St. John’s in Big East team batting. The Red Storm are hitting .346 this year in conference games while the Mountaineers are batting at a .334 clip in conference action.
Last week, Belnome was ranked second in the country in that category to New Mexico State’s Bryan Marquez.
“He got his pitches up. He’s got to work down in the zone,” Van Zant said. “He can’t keep pitching up in the zone and beat good teams.”
Although Summers is working on four day’s rest in consecutive games, the remainder of the pitching staff should be well rested heading into the tournament. Pitt opted to play a Friday doubleheader instead of single games on Friday and Saturday.
“If we would have only played one game Friday then I was going to have to throw Jones half the game and Gross half the game against their No. 2 pitcher,” Van Zant admitted. “The pitchers who didn’t throw in the Pitt series got up to full speed in the bullpen on Saturday. We put the radar gun on them to see who’s doing what.”
Overall, West Virginia pitchers have given up 13 home runs in the team’s last seven games, which is a cause for concern.
However, last Friday Jones was tagged for 10 earned runs in four innings in a 13-12 loss at Pitt. “He wasn’t sharp but I wanted him to get his pitch count in,” said Van Zant.
Jones could be important, particularly if West Virginia faces USF later in the tournament because the Bulls have a predominantly left-handed hitting lineup.
Louisville (10-4) and Connecticut (8-4) are the only two teams in this year’s conference tournament with winning road records in Big East play.
Not coincidentally, Louisville and Connecticut are the top two pitching teams in the Big East. The Cardinals lead the league with a 4.23 team earned run average, while the Huskies are second with a 4.34 ERA.
Cincinnati qualified for the conference tournament despite having the worst team ERA in the Big East at 6.56. Seton Hall, with the conference’s third-best earned run average at 4.35, was edged out of postseason play by the Bearcats on the final day of the regular season.
Seventeen of the 36 invitees have already been released. The team roster will eventually be paired to 22 when the national team is announced June 24.
