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 Junior left-hander, Tyler Sexton (8-3), will take the hill for Western on Friday afternoon. |
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June 1, 2007
Chapel Hill, N.C. - Western Carolina (40-18) opens play in the NCAA Baseball Championship Chapel Hill regional this Friday, June 1 at 2:00 pm against the second-seeded East Carolina Pirates at Boshamer Stadium on the UNC campus. ECU (39-21), the runner-up in the Conference USA tournament which was held in Greenville, N.C., downed Western earlier this season, 3-2, in the Keith LeClair Classic tournament which was named in honor of the former WCU student-athlete and coach who also coached the Pirates.
The day's second game features the No. 3 national seed North Carolina Tar Heels against the Atlantic Sun Champion Jacksonville University Dolphins at approximately 6:00 pm. The two winners from Friday will play at 5:00 pm on Saturday evening, with the two losers from Friday playing at 1:00 pm.
Each game Western plays in the 2007 NCAA Baseball Championships will be broadcast by the Catamount Sports Network and can be heard in Western North Carolina on WWCU-FM, Power 90dot5 in Cullowhee or online at www.WWCUFM.com. Air time is set for 1:45 pm with the first pitch at 2:00 pm.
Western Carolina NCAA Baseball Regional Game Notes
WESTERN CAROLINA ALL-TIME IN NCAA: On the strength of last Monday's at large invitation to the 2007 NCAA Baseball Championship regional, Western Carolina will be making its 11th appearance all-time in the post-season tournament ... Western has won nine Southern Conference tournament championships which are accompanied by automatic bids, tallying the two additional berths with at large bids ... the Catamounts' first-ever at large bid came back in 1994.
NCAA REGIONAL CLOSE CALLS: Western Carolina has twice finished as the regional runner-up in its 11 overall appearances - first in 1992 in the NCAA South II Regional in Tallahassee, Fla., and most recently in the 2003 Wilson Regional in Wilson, N.C.
• In 1992, Western tossed a three-hit shutout over 13th-ranked Florida State, 1-0, in the opening game before taking a 14-1 decision over No. 24 Kent State and blanked ninth-ranked Stanford, 5-0, to stand one win shy of advancing to the College World Series ... WCU rallied from down 4- 1 in the ninth to make it 4-3 before a sharply hit ball by Eric Whitson was fielded at second, preventing the tying run in the form of Mike Hilton from scoring ... FSU defeated Western, 18-3, for the second time that day to advance to the CWS.
• In 2003, after losing the opening game to Virginia Commonwealth (6-0), the Catamounts suffered a one-run loss to the then-12th ranked NC State Wolfpack in what is still the longest game in school history (14 innings), surrendering a solo home run and a run off a wild pitch in the top of the 14th and then stranding a base runner at third base in the home half of the frame to fall, 6-4.
#3 WESTERN CAROLINA VS. #2 EAST CAROLINA - ALL-TIME SERIES: Including dropping the meeting in Greenville earlier this season, Western Carolina trails in the overall series with the Pirates, 1-13, including having lost 12-straight ... the Catamounts' lone win came in 1977 in Cullowhee under head coach Bill Haywood ... the lone neutral field contest was played in 1997 in the Colonial-SoCon Challenge played in Charleston, S.C.
CATAMOUNT - PIRATE TIES: Directional rivals, Western and East Carolina, have multiple ties in their respective program histories ... Current WCU head coach, Todd Raleigh, was an assistant at ECU in 1999 under the late Keith LeClair, who was a student-athlete (1985-88) and coach (1992-97) at WCU ... LeClair was a three-time SoCon Coach of the Year in Cullowhee ... Clark-LeClair Stadium at ECU is named in honor of Keith, and his number 23 was retired last season at Western marking the first - and only - baseball number retired in school history ... LeClair was inducted into Western's Hall of Fame in 2002 ... Current ECU assistant and pitching coach, Bill Jarman spent six years as an assistant at Western Carolina where he and LeClair were assistant coaches from 1989-91 ... When LeClair took over as the head coach in 1991, Jarman stayed on as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator ... In six seasons Jarman helped WCU compile a 226-137 (.659) overall record.
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