Braves ready to open regional Thursday
May 26—PEMBROKE — The University of North Carolina at Pembroke's baseball team returns to the field after nearly three weeks off when they play Thursday. In doing so, they'll return to the NCAA Southeast Regional after three years away.
The Braves will face Mount Olive in the tournament opener at 11 a.m. Thursday. The tournament is being held at North Greenville University in Tigerville, South Carolina.
"It's a very excited group of guys," UNCP coach Paul O'Neil said. "It's well-deserved. We've got a really good team, we've played well all year. This is why you practice so hard in the fall and over the winter and you do all the extra things is to be able to get to this point, to be one of the last teams in our region that's getting a chance to play."
UNCP (29-13), who is the No. 5 seed, will make its fourth regional appearance after qualifying in 2011, 2017 and 2018.
The Braves haven't played a game since losing twice to Columbus State in the Peach Belt Conference semifinal series on May 8-9. O'Neil said the Braves will be fresh after the layoff as they enter tournament play this week.
"I think it probably helped us getting some time off," O'Neil said. "It's definitely helped some guys as far as getting healthy; we definitely had some guys banged up at the end (of the season). I think getting that extra time off has allowed them to heal and be ready to go. I think everybody's had a little bit of a layoff going into this, the way the NCAA structured the regional."
Second-seeded Mount Olive (35-10) won the Conference Carolinas regular-season title. UNCP leads the all-time series against the Trojans 24-14; the teams last met in 2017.
"We're going into Conference Carolinas next season, so it'll be a nice way of us getting acquainted with each other," O'Neil said. "They're a quality team, they're going to give us everything that we can handle. They've got a lot of tradition on their side, their kids are used to winning and they play baseball at a very high level. So if we want to beat them then we're going to have to play our very best."
Catawba is the No. 1 seed in the tournament and faces No. 6 Columbus State on Thursday; No. 3 Wingate faces tournament host and No. 4 seed North Greenville.
All four teams have won between 29 and 33 games this season, and all four have lost between nine and 14 games, suggesting an even field and a potentially-wide-open regional.
"We know a lot of our opponents; we've played Catawba, Wingate and Columbus State," O'Neil said. "That's three, ourselves is four; the only teams we haven't played is Mount Olive and North Greenville. We kind of know what we're getting into, and they know what they're getting into with us too. I don't think there's any real secrets to anybody that's out there; I think everybody you're going to see is a quality program, and it's my belief that it'll come down to who can be the most fundamentally-sound over a four-day period, and you've got to have a little bit of luck on your side too."
There is no super regional round in this year's NCAA Tournament after a format change due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the Braves were to advance out of the regional, they would stay close to home for the NCAA Division II College World Series, which will be played in Cary from June 5-12.
For the Braves to earn that opportunity, they'll need to play their best against this weekend's strong competition.
"In order for us to win four games in a row, we've got to go down and be relaxed, and then we've got to play good baseball," O'Neil said. "We've got to pitch it well, we've got to get timely hitting, we've got to play good defense, we can't make mistakes on the bases, and we've got to play really good, fundamentally-sound baseball for four days in a row. You can't just do it for one day or two days; you've got to be able to do all of that for four days straight. And I think our group can do that, we're confident to do that and we're excited about this opportunity. We're going down there with, the whole premise is to win four baseball games and see if we can keep this thing going."
Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at [email protected] You can follow him on Twitter at @StilesOnSports.
