Miami Baseball Opens 2005 Season At Mardi Gras Ball Tournament
2/23/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Feb. 23, 2005
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THE BOYS OF SPRING GET STARTED EARLY: Baseball season has finally hit Miami University as the RedHawks open up their 2005 season this weekend at the Mardi Gras Ball Tournament in Lafayette, La. Louisiana Lafayette is the host institution as the RedHawks will face Texas State, Marist College, and the host Ragin' Cajuns.
HISTORY IN SEASON OPENERS: Miami is 54-35-1 all-time in season openers and is 7-3 in its last 10. Last season, the RedHawks knocked off Florida, 9-8, on opening day. Keith Weiser (Hamilton, Ohio) pitched 1.2 innings of scoreless relief to pick up the win over the No. 20 Gators. He struck out three of the seven batters he faced in earning his first collegiate victory. John Slone (Cincinnati, Ohio) had three hits for the Red and White while Paul Frietch (Cincinnati, Ohio) drove in four runs.
SEASON OPENERS ON THE ROAD: Fifty-four of Miami's 90 season openers have been played on the road, and in those contests the Red and White has posted a 29-24-1 record. The last four years the RedHawks have opened on the road and have twice returned to Oxford with a victory in hand.
COACH SMITH ON OPENING DAY: During head coach Tracy Smith's tenure at the helm of the Miami baseball program, the RedHawks have a record of 5-3 on opening day. Miami knocked off Thomas More, 6-3, in Smith's head-coaching debut back on March 2, 1997. The RedHawks won four straight games to open the 1998 season, the best start to a season since Smith took over in 1997.
SCOUTING THE TEXAS STATE BOBCATS: The Texas State Bobcats enter the Mardi Gras Ball Tournament with a record of 8-2 after taking two of three games from New Mexico last weekend. The Lobos knocked off the Bobcats, 19-5, in the first game of the series, before Texas State rebounded with 10-6 and 9-2 victories. Junior Jarod Garza picked up the win in the 10-6 win while sophomore Jason Baca was the pitcher of record in the 9-2 game.
Senior Nolan Mast leads the Texas State offensive attack, batting .433 with one home run and five runs batted in. Freshman Elliot Babcock is hitting .421 and has a pair of home runs in 31 at bats. As a team, the Bobcats are hitting .314 and have eight home runs in 10 games. They have seven regulars batting above .300.
On the mound, the Bobcats feature a starting rotation of junior righthander Ryan Bennett, and senior righties Chris Jean and Bobby Sawicki. Bennett is 2-0 with a 2.25 earned run average, striking out six batters in 16 innings of work. Jean is 2-1 with a 3.95 ERA and is averaging more than one strikeout per inning pitched. Sawicki is 0-1 with a 7.35 ERA.
The Bobcats are guided by seventh-year head coach Ty Harrington. He is assisted by Howard Bushong and Marcus Hendry. Harrington, a graduate of the University of Texas, has a record of 176-131in his time at the helm of Texas State baseball program.
When Miami and Texas State play on Feb. 25, it will mark the first-ever meeting between the two teams.
SCOUTING THE LOUISIANA LAFAYETTE RAGIN' CAJUNS: The Louisiana Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns come onto the weekend with a record of 7-0. They knocked off St. Johns, Southern and Northwestern State last weekend as part of the Louisiana Lafayette Invitational. In the tournament finale, versus Northwestern State, senior lefthander Austin Faught tossed eight innings of two-hit baseball in a 4-0 victory.
Junior outfielder John McCarthey is batting .458 to lead the Ragin' Cajuns' at the plate. Senior first baseman Phillip Hawke has driven in eight runs to lead the team, and also has one of UL Lafayette's two home runs. As a team, the Ragin' Cajuns have a .318 batting average and have 47 runs batted in compared to 16 by their opponents.
On the mound, Faught and senior righty Kevin Ardoin both have 2-0 records to start the year and post matching 0.64 earned run averages. Opposing hitters have a .143 batting average versus Faught while Ardoin has 14 strikeouts in 14 innings of work.
Tony Robichaux is in his 11th season at UL Lafayette and won the 600th game of his coaching career on Feb. 20 with the 4-0 win over Northwestern State. In his 11-plus seasons with the Ragin' Cajuns, he is 357-245.
SCOUTING THE MARIST COLLEGE RED FOXES: The Marist College Red Foxes, a member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, will be playing their first games of the 2005 season at the Mardi Gras Ball Tournament. Last season, Marist went 25-30 overall and finished fourth in the MAAC with a record of 17-10.
Senior outfielder Keith Brachold is the team's top returning hitter. He hit .369 a year ago, with seven home runs, 40 RBIs, and a team-high 24 doubles. As a team, Marist hit .290 with six regulars finishing the season with averages of .300 or better.
Senior righty George Heath won seven games for the Red Foxes in 2004 and had an ERA of 4.08 in 14 appearances. Sophomore Robert Ryan's four saves were tops on the team last year. He struck out seven batters in 14.1 innings of work and had a record of 0-2.
Joe Raccuia is in his second season as the head coach at Marist. In his inaugural campaign, the Red Foxes went 25-30. The graduate of Radford is assisted by Brian Anderson and Ryan Mau.
Marist and Miami have played two previous games, with the both games in the series coming in 1997. The series is tied 1-1 with Miami winning the last contest, 6-0.
PRESEASON COACHES' POLLS HEAVILY FAVORS THE REDHAWKS: For the fifth time in the last seven seasons the Miami RedHawks have been picked by the MAC coaches to win the East Division. The RedHawks have reached the conference title game in five of the past seven seasons, and with their 19 returning letterwinners, finish in front of Kent State and Ohio University to win the MAC East Division in this year's preseason poll.
The West Division was figured to end up as Central Michigan, Ball State, and Northern Illinois in descending order from divisional crown to the No. 3 team. Miami was pegged to win the MAC Tournament and make its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2000.
PILING UP THE WINS: Last season's 36-21 marked the seventh straight season that head coach Tracy Smith and the RedHawks have won at least 30 games. In fact, the only time in Smith's career that Miami has not won 30+ games was during his first year at the helm when it went 27-28 in 1997.
ANOTHER CAREER MILESTONE IN SIGHT: With 36 victories last season, head coach Tracy Smith became only the third skipper in Miami history to notch 250 career victories. Smith enters the 2005 season with a 272-202-1 career mark. He is still 84 wins away from passing Bud Middaugh on Miami's career win list for second all-time.
18 IN FIVE YEARS: The campus of Miami University has become a so-called breeding ground over the last five years for professional major league baseball players as 18 RedHawks have either been drafted or have signed free agent contracts. Four players from last year's team added to this list in Mike Ferris (2nd round, St. Louis), Chad Reineke (13th round, Houston), John Slone (15th round, Pittsburgh) and Matt Raguse (24th round, San Francisco). Ferris and Slone both earned All-America honors in 2004.
NEW FACES IN 2005: Miami's coaching staff has two new faces for the 2005 season. One of the new additions, pitching coach Ty Neal, is no stranger to Oxford, having lettered for the RedHawks from 1996-99. A lefthanded pitcher, Neal won 19 games for the Red and White and earned a degree in health and sport studies in 1999. Prior to returning to Miami, he spent three seasons as the pitching coach at Southern Illinois before mentoring the University of Cincinnati pitching staff during the 2004 season.
The other new addition the Miami's coaching staff is Joe Kruzel. Kruzel is no stranger to the Mid-American Conference as he was the head coach at the University of Toledo for 11 seasons (1993-2003). In his time in Toledo, Kruzel won 259 games, becoming the second-winningest coach in school history. In 1999, Kruzel skippered the Rockets to a 39-20 record, the second most wins in school history, and was named MAC Coach of the Year for his efforts.