To Avoid Double Entendres, This Blog Has No Title

Forgive my tardiness, but this has been a rough week. To say I've been under the weather might be a tiny bit of an understatement. But, in the aftermath of the Belmont loss, let's all just get it out of our systems.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Typically, in an ETSU loss, one of two things (or both in really bad losses) go wrong: three point defense and free throw shooting. The perimeter D was acceptable at 33%, but the free throw shooting was a very poor 68%. You can't shoot that poorly at the line against a team as good as Belmont and expect to win.

Some might argue that hitting all 16 opportunities at the stripe wouldn't have won us the game and, ceteris paribus, they'd be right - we would have lost by three. But bad free throw shooting can ruin your confidence. If a guy can't hit his free throws, then he starts missing other shots, and then his bad shooting can very easily become contagious. Generally, this team has been able to get away with bad shooting from the line because of good defense and a lack of scoring depth among the other teams in the conference, but Belmont has the latter in spades. That makes life really difficult, and that's why we lost.

But life goes on, and the team bounced back and played a very solid second half plus ten minutes to beat Lipscomb in Allen Arena for the second year in a row.

If anyone needs any perspective on how great of a second half this team played, our top three scorers from the first half were: Zeke with ten, Sollazzo with six, and Curtis Wilkinson with five. (Wilkinson, by the way, would not score again and foul out after 23 minutes. Baby steps.)

Speaking of ye olde Flying Cannoli, the reaction to his last-second jumper seemed mixed between "Wow, we just took the lead with 2.5 seconds left!" and "Wow, Sollazzo just made a jump shot!" Now, I recognize that Sollazzo likes to drive a lot and doesn't always have the greatest shot selection, but come on. He's shooting 51% from the field on the year. For a player that doesn't live under the basket like Brown or Wilkinson, that's really impressive. He also went 6/6 from the line, which has really been his big sore spot this season. He's not perfect, but the fact that he has done even a decent job running the point for this team as a converted small forward is really impressive, and he deserves far more credit than he gets.

So what about the ladies? I have to be honest, I really could not immerse myself in their tilt with Lipscomb. Maybe it was because I was sick, or my mind was just elsewhere, or maybe it was both teams shooting under 30% from the field that just made this game tough to get into. Still, there were some great individual numbers. Another 20 point game for Pickwell. Another double-double for Tish. TD back on form with 17, and Tosha Austin with 11 rebounds (that may be a career high; will double-check and confirm). I will also go out on a limb and say Jess Reece's seven blocks is a single-game program record. If not... wow.



Enough with hoops for now. Let's talk about another sport near and dear to my heart... ice hockey!

... wait, we don't have a hockey team? We don't even have an ice rink? Bugger. Oh well. (Did you know: Gulf Coast and Kennesaw both field men's club teams in the ACHA. The real kicker: they're really good.)

So, in that case, let's talk about another sport near and dear to my heart... water polo!

Kidding, kidding. Baseball.

The Bucs wrap up their season-opening series against Marist today. I suspect the bats will be up for this one after Chad Gallagher fanned ten for the Red Foxes yesterday in a 5-1 win. I couldn't get out to see the end of the Friday game (which was canceled due to darkness, the lighting situation being what it was), but got out for the seven innings played on Friday. I came away with more positive sentiments than negative, for certain. Let's break it down by player:

The Good
John Long - 5.0 IP, 60-ish pitches, 4 Ks, 2 BBs, 4 H, 2 ER - I was disappointed that Long got yanked after an error, but I suspect that Skole had him on a fairly tight pitching schedule for this early in the season. I liked what I saw. He has really good off-speed stuff that gave Marist's bats fits all day. He also doesn't get rattled easily; after committing a throwing error in the second to put two runners on base, he induced a fly-out, struck out Nick McQuail, and then got a ground-out to short to get himself out of the inning with no runs against him. In fact, he went four full innings carrying a shutout. I liked what I saw very much.

Dylan Pratt - 2/5, 3 RBI, R, 2B, HR (1) - Let me say, first of all, that Pratt is either way taller than 6'1" or way leaner than 220 lbs, and possibly both, but man oh man does he have the power. He seemed a little bit jittery at first and is prone to chasing one down around his ankles (which was how he struck out the only time he fanned), but when he gets hold of the ball, it's going into the outfield. That's exactly what you want from a DH.

The... Neutral?
Kerry Doane - 2/4, 2 RBI, 2 R, 2B, 2 E - For every step forward Kerry takes, he seems to take a step back. Despite a couple of very solid hits, I might never forget how he let the ball bounce right under his glove on a routine grounder and allowed two runs to score. It made me want to pull my hair out strand-by-strand. I really don't want to say anything more about it.

The Golden Sombrero
Cory Betterson - 4 Ks (2 swinging, 2 looking) - I was really hoping no one would earn one of these for a while, but maybe it's better to get them out of the way during the non-conference schedule. It was a mixed blessing that C-Bet didn't get another crack at it; if he hit, he would have gotten himself off the schneid, but if he struck out again, he would have tied a school record, and his name would likely be immortalized somewhere besides a blog that no one reads.



And finally, softball. The results from this weekend, with the tilt against Canisius still pending:

ETSU 7-5 Towson

Henderson - 2/3, HR, RBI, 3 R, BB
Lower - 1/3, 2 RBI, R
Baird - 1/1, RBI, R, 2BB

Morris (W) - 5.2 IP, 9 H, 5 Runs (1 Earned), 5 K, 3 BB
Wolff (S) - 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 K, BB


ETSU 5-7 Morehead State (8 innings)

Baird - 2/5
Henderson - 1/3, RBI, R
Tara Hartnett - 2/3, 2 R
Annie Martin - 1/1, RBI

Duncan - 6.1 IP, 7 H, 5 R(3 Earned), 5 K, 4 BB
Wolff (L) - 1.0 IP, H, 2 R (1 Earned), K, BB

3 Errors


Akron 3-6 ETSU

Fox - 2/4, R
Henderson - 2/4, 2 RBI

Morris (L) - 4.0 IP, 8 H, 5 Runs (4 Earned), 5 K, 2 BB, Balk
Wolff - 2.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R (0 Earned) 1 BB, 1 SO

2 Errors

Charleston 3-1 ETSU

Martin - 2/4
Baird - 1/3, R
Campbell - 1/3, RBI

Duncan (L) - 5.0 IP, 3 H, 3 R (0 Earned), 4 K, 4 BB, 2 HBP
Wolff - 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R

2 Errors

I don't know about you, but I see a recurring theme in these losses: solid pitching efforts going to waste due to sloppy defense. Case in point, the ERA for each pitcher at the Charleston tournament:

Morris - 4.42 (including 3.0 IP + 3 ER in Canisius game today)
Duncan - 1.85
Wolff - 1.31 (including 3.0 IP + 1 ER in Canisius game today)

When you don't have the firepower to make up for it, errors can really burn you. Baseball can make up for a couple of bloopers a game, but softball doesn't have that luxury.

The other sore spot is driving in runners. Coming into today, the Lady Bucs have left an average of eight runners stranded per game. That's a lot of potential offense left on the base paths. I think that's indicative of a lack of serious power in the lineup, which was a big issue with the program under Mangrum. Since Irwin has effectively inherited this team from Mangrum minus its two best offensive players in 2010 (Schneider and Cason), I guess that shouldn't really be a shock, but I suspect it's something Irwin is looking to correct long-term.

The current score from Charleston: ETSU 4-8 Canisius in the top of the 7th with two away. And with that, I'm out the door. Payece! (Really awkward way of saying "peace," for any non-Will Smith fans in the house.)