Baseball Opens NCAA Tournament Play at Notre Dame Regional – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/27/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 27, 2002
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State drew a third seed and will open the NCAA Tournament at the Notre Dame Regional against the second-seeded Fighting Irish on Friday at 4 p.m. (EDT, 3 p.m. CDT) game at Frank Eck Stadium.
No. 1 seed South Alabama will play No. 4 seed Kent State at 8 p.m. The loser’s of those two games will meet Saturday at 12 Noon with the winners meeting at 4 p.m. The winner of Saturday’s first game will play the loser of the second game Saturday night at 8 p.m. The winner of the Saturday night game would have to beat the undefeated team twice on Sunday to advance to a Super Regional against the winner of the Tallahassee Regional, which includes Florida State, Central Florida, South Florida and Stetson. The two Sunday games will be played at 2 p.m. and 45 minutes following the conclusion of that game, if necessary.
The Buckeyes won the Big Ten Tournament Saturday as a second seed with a 6-3 victory over top-seed Minnesota to earn the Big Ten’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. Ohio State finished the season with a 36-18-1 overall record and an 18-11 mark in the Big Ten. OSU has won 13 of its last 18 games. Rightfielder Doug Deeds (So., Bexley, Ohio/Bexley), a second-team All-Big Ten honoree, leads the team with a .383 batting average and 12 home runs. Second baseman Christian Snavely (So., Defiance, Ohio/Defiance), who was also a second-team all-conference selection, is second on the team with a .371 batting average and leads the team with 76 hits, including 13 doubles, five triples and eight home runs. First-team All-Big Ten first baseman Nick Swisher (Jr., Parkersburg, W.Va./Parkersburg) has a team-high 50 RBI and is third on the team with a .359 batting average. As a team, the Buckeyes are batting .309.
The Buckeye pitching staff has a 4.27 ERA and is led by first-team All-Big Ten selections Nate Smith (Jr., Bryan, Ohio/Bryan) and Scott Lewis (Fr., Washington Court House, Ohio/Washington Court House). Smith has a 6-0 record and a 2.54 ERA, but did not pitch last week in the conference tournament. Lewis, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, is 7-2 with a 2.71 ERA after getting the Big Ten Tournament-clinching victory on Saturday. E.J. Laratta (Sr., Englewood, Colo./Cherry Creek), who got the win over Northwestern last Friday, is 8-4 with a 4.82 ERA and Josh Newman (So., Wheelersburg, Ohio/Wheelersburg), a second-team All-Big Ten selection, is 8-5 with a 4.08 ERA. This is the school’s 15th appearance in the NCAA Tournament and the ninth, including three in the last four seasons, under coach Bob Todd, who is in his 15th year at Ohio State.
Notre Dame won the Big East Tournament with a 3-2 10-inning victory over Rutgers on Saturday to earn that conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. The Fighting Irish are 44-15 overall after finishing 18-8 to win the Big East regular season title. The Irish have won 10 of their last 11 games, including a stretch of nine straight victories. At one point this season Notre Dame had won 16 in a row and has won 35 of its last 40 games of the season after opening the year 9-10.
Centerfielder Steve Stanley leads the Irish with a .442 batting average. He has 102 hits and 31 RBI. Leftfielder Brian Stavisky has a .397 average with 42 RBI and six home runs, while catcher Paul O’Toole has 10 home runs to pace the team. Third baseman Andrew Bushey has a team-best 51 RBI. The team has a .312 batting average with 43 home runs. The pitching staff has an ERA of 3.41 and is led by J.P. Gagne, who has a 2.79 ERA in 80 2/3 innings with 57 strikeouts. Grant Johnson has 74 strikeouts to pace the team.
South Alabama lost 20-9 to New Mexico State in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament championship game, but finished the year with a 41-17 overall mark to draw an at-large bid and make its second straight NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed. The Jaguars were the top seed at the 2001 Clemson Regional. Jansen Rayborn leads South Alabama with a .358 batting average, though Ryan Mulhern is on his heels with a .356 average, 77 hits and 62 RBI. The Jaguar pitching staff has an ERA of 4.76, led by Sam Smith, who is 8-1 with a 3.36 ERA and 109 strikeouts.
Kent State rounds out the field earning the automatic bid from the Mid-American Conference with a 13-4 victory over Ball State to win the conference tournament. The Golden Flashes participated in the Columbus Regional in 2001 eliminating host Ohio State with a 9-8 victory. Kent is 37-20 overall and was 18-8 in the MAC. Phil LeCascio leads the Golden Flashes with a .387 batting average. Chris Welsch is second on the team with a .342 average, but leads the team with 78 hits and 18 doubles. Pat O’Brien has 17 home runs to lead Kent State, which is batting .318 as a team. Dirk Hayhurst is 8-3 with a 2.84 ERA and has 92 strikeouts to lead a staff that owns a 5.06 ERA. Todd, the Ohio State coach, spent four season as the Kent State head coach and amassed a record of 124-82 before moving to Columbus.
Tickets for the Notre Dame Regional are available by calling the Notre Dame Athletics Ticket Office at (574) 631-7356 and are available in regional packages or on an individual game basis. In the regional package, reserved adult tickets are $32 while general admission seats are $24. Reserved tickets for each game are $8, while general admission tickets are $6.
South Bend Regional (All Times EDT)
Friday, May 31 Game 1 – 4:00 p.m. Notre Dame (44-15) vs. Ohio State (36-18-1) Game 2 – 8:00 p.m. South Alabama (41-17) vs. Kent State (37-20)
Saturday, June 1 Game 3 – 12:00 Noon Loser of game one versus loser of game two Game 4 – 4:00 p.m. Winner of game one versus winner of game two Game 5 – 8:00 p.m. Winner of game three versus loser of game four
Sunday, June 2 Game 6 – 2:00 p.m. Winner of game four versus winner of game five Game 7 – if necessary to begin 45 minutes after game six.
