Blazers blast Bobcats 11-0

    Even after falling 11-0 to No. 15 Valdosta State University, GCSU head baseball coach Tom Carty was not upset.
    “I’ll wake up tomorrow,” Carty said.
    The loss came Wednesday afternoon at John Kurtz field, only three days after the Bobcats completed a three game sweep of Peach Belt Conference foe Lander University to improve to 7-8 in the PBC.
    “You’re really disappointed (with today’s outcome) after you sweep a weekend and feel like you’re turning a corner with the club,” Carty said.
    Six Blazer pitchers combined to shutout the Bobcats while surrendering only two hits.
    The first Bobcat hit did not come until the seventh inning when junior centerfielder Derek Johns hit a high fly ball that landed on the warning track in left-center field for a double.
    “It came a little too late,” Johns said. “It’s good to break up the no-hitter, I guess, but all we can really do is get past this game and look forward to this weekend.”
    GCSU’s other hit came in the ninth when redshirt sophomore leftfielder Andrew Evans smoked a double down the right field line with two outs. But Johns followed by grounding out to short to end the game.
    Carty has stressed all season that his team has to get good starting pitching to be competitive. That showed Wednesday as senior lefty Sean Heimpel struggled from the first batter.
    Heimpel, who was charged with the loss, did not record an out as he gave up singles to the first three batters he faced and walked the next two.
    Redshirt sophomore lefty Ryan Bode replaced him and hit his first batter with a pitch before retiring the next three.
    VSU scored five runs in the inning and the Bobcats never recovered.
    “Everyone was just frustrated after that first inning,” Johns said. “Everyone just brought that (frustration) with them to the plate. It’s a game of momentum and we just couldn’t take it back.”
    Carty said that he feels his team does not have the depth at starting pitching that it has had in the past.
    “Our (lack of) depth on the mound just hurts us,” Carty said. “We gave an opportunity today with (Heimpel), who we were counting on early in the year. I wanted to give him one more shot as we get closer to finishing up this conference – It didn’t work out for us.”
    Carty said that VSU threw their top pitchers in the game, while he wanted to rest his best arms for this weekend’s series at No. 23 Francis Marion University.
    “(VSU’s) guys pitch on the weekend for them, they’re the best they’ve got and we chose not to run our best guys out today,” Carty said. “I don’t know if our guys can handle pitching on the weekend and then coming in and pitching two innings or so midweek.”
    The Bobcats still feel confident that they can make an impact in the PBC. They are currently in fifth place, and still have 12 conference games left to play in the regular season.
    “Lately we’ve had our weekend starters going out there and having some success,” senior catcher Pete Paris said. “I think we’ll be ready to play this weekend. I feel like we have the talent to (win games), we show flashes of brilliance every now and then and it’s just showing it on a consistent basis.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 4 2008. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry