Pirates staying close to home

Published 7:11 pm Monday, May 28, 2012

GREENVILLE —  The East Carolina baseball team will make its 26th NCAA Regional appearance and 12th in the last 14 years after earning a No. 2 seed at the Chapel Hill Regional in this year’s NCAA Baseball Championships, which will be held at Boshamer Stadium.
The Pirates (35-22-1) will square of against No. 3 St. John’s (37-21) in the first round of the regional on Friday, June 1 at 1 p.m. (ET), while No. 6 national seed North Carolina (44-14) will face No. 4 Cornell (31-15-1) at 6 p.m.
In recent years the Pirates have faced two of the three clubs in the Chapel Hill Regional, most recently the Tar Heels where they dropped a midweek extra-inning affair at UNC 1-0 in 2012. The two clubs have met 74 times with the Tar Heels leading the all-time series 49-25.
ECU’s opening round matchup with the Red Storm will be the eighth between the two schools (ECU leads 4-3) and third in NCAA post-season play. The two teams met twice in the 2011 Charlottesville Regional with ECU dropping the first game 2-0 on day one of the regional before eliminating St. John’s 6-4 to advance to the regional against the No. 1 overall national seed Virginia Cavaliers.
Winner’s of the Ivy League crown, Cornell received an automatic bid the NCAA Regionals and could face the Pirates in a potential second round matchup depending on the outcome of Friday’s games. The last time ECU squared off against Cornell was back in 1969 when the Pirates claimed a weekend series, two games to one.
Of the 64 teams that were announced Monday, the Pirates own a 13-9 overall record in 2012 against 10 institutions: Louisville (1-0), North Carolina (0-1), N.C. State (1-1),
Oral Roberts (1-0), Purdue (0-1), Rice (1-2), Stony Brook (3-0), UAB (4-0), UCF (1-3) and UNC Wilmington (1-1).
Joining the Tar Heels as national seeds in the 64-team field are (in order): Florida (42-18), UCLA (42-14), Florida State (43-15), Baylor (44-14), Oregon (42-17), UNC, LSU (43-16) and South Carolina (40-17).
Each of the 16 regionals features four teams, playing a double-elimination format. The regionals are scheduled to be conducted from Friday, June 1, to Monday, June 4 (if necessary). Selection of the eight super regional hosts will be announced on www.NCAA.com/cws, Monday, June 4 at approximately 11 p.m. (EDT).
The 65th Men’s College World Series begins play Saturday, June 15, at TD Ameritrade Stadium in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.

2012 NCAA CHAPEL HILL REGIONAL SCHEDULE
Friday, June
Game 1: (3) St. John’s vs. (2) East Carolina (1 p.m.)
Game 2: (4) Cornell vs. (1) North Carolina (6 p.m.)
Saturday, June 2
Game 3: 1 p.m.
Game 4: 6 p.m.
Sunday, June 3
Game 5: 1 p.m.
Game 6: 6 p.m.
Monday, June 4
Game 7: 6 p.m. – IF NECESSARY