Pirate Baseball Opens Up Fall Practice
September 24, 2003 | Baseball
"I thought today was one of the best practices we've had since I've been here," Mazey said. "Always on the first day, guys are anxious to get started, working hard, hustling and trying to show us something. We accomplished a lot today."
Sixteen new Pirates, 12 pitchers and four position players, suited up for the first time for ECU. ECU had to replace 14 wins off the mound in graduated senior starters Will Brinson, Neal Sears and Glenn Tucker and 22 total wins from last season's pitching staff.
"We had to replace a lot of innings of the seniors that we lost last year. We only return 12 wins off the mound from last season so the goal of fall practice this year is to establish some roles on the mound and see who's going to fit in," Mazey said.
In Mazey's first season at the helm in 2003, ECU finished 34-27-1 and advanced back to the NCAA Tournament for the 19th time and fifth consecutive year. The Pirates return six of its seven top hitters in 2004 led by junior Darryl Lawhorn (.332, 15 2B, 14 HR, 49 RBI), junior first baseman Ryan Norwood (.298, 9 2B, 13 HR, 46 RBI) and sophomore catcher Jake Smith (.284, 10 2B, 10 HR, 26 RBI).
Wednesday was day one of ECU's 21-day fall schedule. The Pirates will continue sessions the remainder of the week getting into intersquad play later on this weekend.
"Everybody's working hard," Mazey said. "I was impressed by the team. We're going to start playing intersquads this weekend. We'll play intersquads Saturday and intersquads Sunday. We're going to give all the pitchers an opportunity to throw live and start getting their pitch counts up a little bit. So, it's going to start getting pretty competitive."
ECU will wrap up fall ball towards the end of October with an ECU World Series. The team will be divided into two intersquads, and the Pirates will play a best-of-three series.
