Yeah.
Hello, Monarch fans, and welcome to the Hudson Homer's podcast. If you've clicked on this episode, thank you for watching our first episode where you previewed, the offense and the lineup and talk to Stephen Meyer who's a transfer in to ODU., if you haven't listened to that episode, please go back and listen to that first one. In today's episode, we are going to focus on the pitching staff. Our starting rotation, arms in the bullpen. We're also going to do a quick run through. Of the schedule.
So you know what to expect and provide a little bit of context on some of our matchups. I'm Gary and I'm joined as always by CB Wilkins. CB, how's it going?
Hey, it is great. We're talking about ODU baseball. It's always a good time.
And I've just been getting so amped up in these weeks leading up to it. We've got just a few days away before the season actually starts with the home opener against George Washington. So I'm, I'm pretty pumped. I'm ready to smell the dirt and get down there to Norfolk.
This is my favorite time of the year because it's all potential. At this point, it's just what you think could happen. You know, nobody has an ERA yet. Nobody has a batting average yet. It's all just, you're just excited about what it could be.
Everything is all right in front of you as an individual and as a team. And as we talked about when we were going through the lineup, uh, there's a lot of really good hitters, a lot of really good guys in that lineup, and this could be a very fun year for ODU.
Yeah, it's uh, I mean every but you know as exciting as that lineup is, you know every year people ask me How's the team going to be? My answer is always well, they're going to be as good as their pitching
And, we saw through some injuries and some things last year where just how important pitching is, especially as you get down the stretch and really into the grind, of the season. So let's just jump right in here on this pitching staff. I know we've had some turnover. There may have some new faces, in the main weekend starting lineup, but CB, who are you projecting to be our, our Friday starter weekend series?
so I, you know, I'm going to talk about the pitching and I'm going to say, I don't have a lot of certainty about these guys roles. I'm going to tell you what I think it's going to be based on what I've seen. But as always, I'm just some guy, I'll say this, we have a lot of depth. There are a lot of guys with really good arms, really talented, how it's all going to work itself out, I really don't know.
But one thing I do feel pretty certain of is that come, Friday, against George Washington, it's going to be John Hollibets on the mound. I'm, I'm pretty sure he's going to be our opening day guy. Going to start out as the Friday guy, hopefully maintain that all year. Huge arm. We were lucky that Radford was such a mess that they let this kid go. They had such nonsense going on that a bunch of people left.
And he decided to come to us, Phenomenal arm great kid didn't pitch a ton up in the cape last year in the cape cod league But pitched enough to be very impressive to people so my guess is you're going to see a solid amount of scouts anytime he's on the mound and a just a big time competitor. I'm so very excited about what john Halibut's is going to do this year for us.
And that Friday starting spot is probably the most pressure packed position for any player in college baseball because you're likely going up against the other team's ace and you're setting the tone for the whole weekend. So if you're getting blown up in the second and third inning here, your bullpen is going to be in trouble for the rest of that series. So, it is a tough job to have.
And really excited to see, what he's able to do with it there and provide some stability for us at that position going throughout the year. And especially when we get into conference play,
Yeah, I think john's the kind of guy he really lives off of So I think, as you said, if you, you win that first game of the weekend, you got three games. Well, then you only got to win one of the other two to win the weekend. Right? Well, if you lose the first game, you got to win two games that are left to win the weekend. So just get yourself on a good foot. That first game really changes your whole outlook on how the weekend can go. I think John's a great. A great guy to have in that spot.
He's definitely a gamer so after that again, I I know we have a group of guys who are all looking at being starters I'm going to just list them. I'm not really going to say I really don't know who's going to be Saturday sunday who's going to fill in more on tuesday and wednesday so we brought in eric harker. He's a junior. He's a transfer from cincinnati, he actually, when he was a freshman in Cincinnati, he was teammates with, Nick Murray, who was ODU's, director of player development.
So, I have to imagine when Garrett went in the, uh, transfer portal, that was a call that Nick made pretty fast. He was, he was Cincinnati's team captain last year as a sophomore and had a couple of really good years there. Really good right handed pitcher. And so we're, we're lucky to have him. I really have to believe he's going to find his way in that weekend rotation. Kyle Finn is another, kid. He's a junior college transfer. He was at Niagara County community college up in New York.
And his team actually went to the, Duco world series last year. He pitched for that. He was paired with a guy, I think in a Yukon, it was a really good pitch. So the two of them would kind of.
Pitch back to back games and he's a really talented pitcher, too so that's a couple new guys we brought in that are fighting for those starting roles And again, if these guys don't end up being in the rotation, you've got real electric arms out of the bullpen then we have some returning guys who are fighting for spots Uh, jacob gomez who you know, and i'm he's getting a shot. I believe to start if he doesn't end up being a starter that's a dynamite really, aggressive arm out of the bullpen.
Jacob is, he's a fighter. He's a guy, if you don't have him in the rotation, I think it's probably just because you want him to be your closer. So he's the guy that will just fight and he's a bulldog on the mound. He's a really aggressive kid as a baseball player.
and I feel like Jacob too, has kind of been like the stabilizing force in that bullpen. Definitely last year. I mean, he only started two games, appeared in 21. But he seemed to be the, one of the better answers in the bullpen, especially coming into really tight scenarios. I think your evaluation there is him being a, a fighter and, and a dude you can depend on is, is definitely there. So whether he's in the rotation or the bullpen, I mean, that's a, that that's a win for this pitching
Yeah, he is, as New Jersey as they come. He is not afraid of anybody. He is going to throw haymakers at you and then stare you down. I love Jacob Gomez. He's such a good kid. And I, now as I'm sitting here talking about it, I've convinced myself, I'm putting him in the bullpen. He's the closer. Uh, no, I really don't know. A couple more guys who are, who are fighting for options. So Dylan Brown who started last year as our Sunday starter as a freshman. And he is, big six, five lefty.
But despite all that size, he doesn't necessarily have that overpowering stuff, but he throws hard, throws with movement,, and he's, he's actually, they're actually working on him using that strength and that height and that leverage better,, and he has looked outstanding in the fall, I got to see him several times, and he, he looked like he's, you know, taking those steps in his growth that you want to see from a sophomore, and then Ben Moore, Who was an all american as a freshman freshman all
american and I think just today they named him to the all sunbelt preseason team he was a reliever and so he's another guy getting a chance to start, you know Which is what he did in high school, obviously ben was really outstanding He was right there along with gomez a guy out of the bullpen who you bring in to really shut things down and stabilize stuff so somewhere in that grouping is our starters I mean there might be some other guys here that they compete for too, but I think Those six I
mentioned are some combination of that's going to be starting for us.
So it's is definitely gonna look, I think almost like a, a brand new, at least for those three days rotation wise. 'cause not a lot of, starts between all of them. obviously Dylan had some last year, but I think that almost gives the coaching staff license to play around with that a little bit and be able to figure those things out through non conference play. Just to see, you know, who's got it, who's, who just does better coming out of the bullpens.
I mean, some guys are like that and there's roles for that all over the place. I'm curious to see, and I, I would definitely think the safest bet in the world is to say that the guys that start Friday, Saturday, Sunday against George Washington. Decent chances aren't the same three. They're going for our last weekend series. It'd be nice,
Yeah, I would hope at least one of the three stays the same. But I think it's fair to say just throughout a college season, you typically don't end up with the same three at the end. We do have a dark horse in the starting positions. And that's Blake Morgan's knee. If you remember, if you're an ODU fan, Blake Morgan was our phenomenal, freshman. He had a, just an outstanding freshman year in 2020. Uh, 2023 had some struggles. I think he was really just figuring it back out again.
And then blew his knee out, and making a play at first base. I think he's told me he tore both the ACL and the MCL on that play. That was only last April. So here we are. end of January, about the start of the season in February. When I was talking to him about a week and a half ago, he was saying he's still not sure if he's going to be healthy for the season.
What it really comes down to is they get to a certain point where if he's not going to be healthy and ready to play, they're not going to have him play, it's much smarter to miss the season, obviously we talked about he, he has a really good headspace about it where he's very mature and saying, look, you know, playing a season, not healthy is worse than not playing the season. So if it takes sitting out. Rehabbing, getting strong, working himself out and getting better that way.
Spending time, learning the game even more from watching it, then that's going to be better than going out there with a knee that's, at, 70, 80 percent and struggling. As much as we'd all love to see Blake pitch, if he's not going to be healthy, it's definitely better for him and better for the team, but he doesn't pitch.
You can also save that year too, by not playing because as we've, we've talked about offline before, where this isn't like football, where you can play four games and still get your full year of eligibility. You come out there and you're out there for one out and your season has been burned. I love watching Blake Morgan pitch. Uh, I'm a fellow lefty, so
I'm a lefty too. Me too.
Hey, we're with the lefty Hudson Homer's podcast. Now we're going to.
There you go. Love it. Renamed it. Rebranded. Changed all
We're going to sell nothing but left handed merchandise from here on out on monarchist. com. But yeah, I, I love watching him, him pitch and just the way that he commanded the strike zone and mixed his pitches and they could just come in and just dominate you with the fastball when you weren't paying attention. So I would much rather see that version of Blake Morgan where he's. Healthy and able to go full boat. Then, him having to compensate for a bad knee by maybe hurting his other knee.
We've seen that in some other sports too. So wishing the best hope he's, he's feeling better, but we definitely want him at a hundred percent when he takes the mound.
And he's a he's a great kid. Like I said, I just talking to him. He sounds like he's in a really good place mentally about it. And he's he's an excellent teammate. I used to tell, Brett Smith, uh, who, you know, some of some folks remember he was with ODU for seven years. Uh, because of injuries, literally was working at doctorate by last year. Uh, but I would tell Brett, you know, you can still contribute to the team even when you're not playing because you're such a good teammate.
And I think Blake is exactly that kind of guy. He is such a, he's a, such a big fan of his, his fellow guys. He's he keeps it goofy. So even if he's not able to go out there, he's still going to be a big part of the team.
That's awesome to hear. And you need those blue guys in the, in the bullpen or in the dugout, wherever it may be, because. The season gets long real fast and, uh, you got to have someone, you have multiple options to kind of pick up those spirits there And keep everything going in the right direction.
And you gotta spend a lot of time with each other, so it's, it's important to like each other and have guys who are fun to be around.
And we're, hoping to get to know these guys a little bit more as the season goes on and we have them on the podcast, we had Stephen Meyer for our first episode but, let's talk a little bit about that bullpen and, you talked about closers and potential closers, who else that we haven't talked about as someone you're watching, out of the bullpen.
Vincent Bechara, so Bache, kid, obviously Norfolk native, great history at ODU. It's his senior year, which to me is crazy as someone who's known him since he was like nine years old. It's, it's absolutely insane that he's a senior. He's the guy, he's been a big part of the bullpen all three years, like even as a freshman. I think. When he went into his freshman year, I didn't know if he was going to pitch at all. And you know, I think he led the team in appearances.
And so he's been very reliable out of that bullpen every year. Again, I wouldn't expect him necessarily to be a closer, but he's going to be one of those guys. He's going to be there. When you call his number, he's going to come in. He's going to do his job. I mean, that's just one thing you say about Bash. He's, and again, great teammates. Trent Buchanan another one of our returning guys, another Washington product as our, uh, not quite sidearm, kind of like a real low three quarters delivery.
But Trent, uh, he's looked outstanding in the fall. He's a very talented pitcher and he looked like he really took some, some steps over the summer to make himself better. So I'm, I'm excited to see what he can do this season. A new guy we have coming in, Aiden, and I might mispronounce his name, but I think the way he said it was Aiden Kuhl. Aiden's another kid that I've been watching since he was in high school, and played at Roanoke College, for the last, four years, I think.
I think it was three or four years. Now he's finally come back home. He's a Cape Henry kid. And Aiden's a really, he's a huge guy. I mean, the guy's like six, five, he's, he's enormous. So he definitely does. And he's, he's very muscular. Big guy, really intimidating. Come out of the bullpen, throws the ball hard. Uh, that's a guy who really could, could possibly come in close in games for you. And then we have Jay Cassidy is a kid we got from Christopher Newport, and he is a phenomenal pitcher.
He's a guy that could possibly stretch out and give you some starting innings. Lefty throws hard, has really great secondary stuff. Brandon Pond, won, uh, the national championship last year with Lynchburg College. Kid who's been a winner, he threw a complete game in the College World Series. So again, another kid who maybe, you know, as, as he gets stretched out during the year, could end up being a starter, but definitely going to be a big time arm out of the bullpen.
So right there, I mean, I just listed off what five guys that are very strong arms. Uh, but just, just as a, the tip of the iceberg, and then you talk about Kenny LaVarie, you know, Kenny LaVarie is that we're going to have him pitch, so Kenny is going to probably at least once on the weekend. Going to be scheduled to come in out of the bullpen and throw. You have Bailey Matella who was a freshman for us last year. Started off really outstanding.
He kind of, I think he got a little tired by the end of the year. You could see it. I think if you look at his final numbers, they ended up being kind of ugly. But if you remember back to a little bit before the end of the year, he was, I think he had a zero year A through his first, like 14 innings. Bailey he's a very talented pitcher. Now, again, another kid I've been watching. So he was like eighth grade over there. Greenbrier Christian. Really big, talented lefty.
I expect him to make some big strides and have a solid year. We got Lincoln Ransom. So Lincoln Ransom is, again, he is a senior. It's his final year with us. But they have moved him to the bullpen. This is a move I honestly wish that would have happened any time the last two seasons. He just didn't, get enough chances as an outfielder or as a pinch hitter or DH. To me it was a, Hey, we got a really good arm. It's just sitting here on the bench.
We should be using them, especially, you know, you always have points in a baseball season where you're like, man, I wish we had another arm or two. Well, we, we had one. I get why you don't just start throwing a kid in the middle of the season. But I Lincoln's a really good kid, a big arm, and I think, he could be a very surprising addition to the team as a pitcher.
I'm almost surprised we didn't see him a little bit more last year, especially when the injuries started piling up kind of later in the season, but just hearing you go through these players and from what I know about the returners and what you've seen from the new guys coming in. I mean, it's going to be another tough decision point for coach Finney, when he's looking on the bullpen, like, all right, I've got nine different options, who do I bring in for this scenario?
I'm sure they'll plan it out and be much better at than I ever could be. But, I think it's similar theme we saw on the offensive side, where you have a lot of different guys, they can play a lot of different roles for you and they can all get out and that's. I think just a great weapon to have when you don't know what's going to happen throughout the course of the season.
I think that the plus side when it comes to pitching is there's a lot of innings to cover. You know, with the at bats, there's only so many positions on the field. There's only so many at bats in a game. With the pitching, at least you know, in the first part of the year, well, guys are maybe only going to go, even your starters are only going to maybe go four or five innings because it's so cold. And so, you've got a lot of innings to cover.
You get that chance to get guys out there and see what they can do and find out what they can do in some different spots. So, I, it is, you're right, it's, it's the same kind of, like, good problem. Like, there's a lot of talent. And how do you use it all? At least, I think that's a little easier to maybe sort out on the pitching side.
Yeah and just managing expectations of the guys that are on the roster too.
And it, from, from the conversations that we've had, that there's, everyone has that team first mentality and it's not about who's closing today, who's setting up today, who's facing lefties today, it's more of like, what do we need to do as a team to get the outs to go and win this ball game like I said, the conversation we've had, it seems like everyone is very, very bought into that going into the season when maybe in the past that has not always been the case.
Yeah, I mean it's there. We got some really good kids and they're excited to be here. So speaking of that We got a few freshmen that are worth mentioning because and again, I'll say I don't know how their English are gonna turn out I just know that they're talented arms and they've been every time I've been out there. They've been thrown well So Kenny LaVarie's younger brother Marco. He is a pitcher on the team. He was the same thing as Kenny in high school.
He was an infielder and a pitcher, but Marco was a little bit better on the mound So he's coming to us as a pitcher just tough guy, a lot like Kenny was when he got here. Very quiet, very focused on what he's doing. But he's a, he's a good pitcher. We got Hudson Trobaugh, lefty. We love those apparently. We love lefties. From Maryland,, won a state championship. I was fortunate enough.
I got to go up and he played the state championship up there in Waldorf and I got to go watch him he pitched and batted lead off,, and played center field late in the game. It was a walk off victory. It was very fun to watch. But he pitched great. He's been throwing really well. And then, uh, Ben Moisan, uh, he is a righty. He went to IMG. Uh, which, uh, anybody who doesn't know, IMG is one of the premier baseball academies in the country.
I think I just saw yesterday that the current IMG team, which has an ODU commit, Will Orbison, they're the number one team in the country to start the year in high school. So Ben comes from that place where he got a lot of good coaching and he's a very talented kid. So those are three freshmen that are very good pitchers. Again, you know, they got a lot of competition, a lot of guys. They got to work, try to outwork and try to outperform, but they certainly have the ability.
Exciting to hear about all those freshmen. Those of you who typically listen to like football podcasts and stuff, jump over here. IMG is not a, a new name for you. We've definitely had some football players come from IMG and they have put some dudes in. Power five in the NFL. And it's kind of the same story on the baseball side of the thing. They are a talent factory down there.
So, uh, glad to hear where we're cracking into that pipeline to join our Pacific Northwest, to make our full Oregon trail passage out there.
Yeah, we may have had a little bit of an in there. Uh, Sean Wood, who,, some might remember, played at Old Dominion in 2017, coached with us for a few years. He's down there coaching at IMG now. So I don't know if that's, if Sean's down there, you know, hitting an elbow on some guys and saying, Hey, uh, who do you, who do you, who do you? But, uh, I hope he is, cause Sean's a great guy and it'd be wonderful if he was helping us out like
Uh, that, that would be awesome. Build the IMG pipeline all day. You're, you're guaranteed to get some, some really high quality players coming out of there. So if
kid, uh, Will Orbison, we have the 2024 and he's, he's an outfielder and he is a really good ballplayer. So that's exciting
an MLB scout and you're looking at the draft, nevermind, ignore everything we just said. don't draft them, please let them come.
don't don't look at him. He's He's not ready. He's three years of college
There you go. Yeah. Get a, get a couple with us and then have Adam take them in the first round.
Yeah, and frankly anymore with the way they have The minor leagues set up if you're not going to draft the guy in the first Round second round third round out of high school.
They're not really it's not really worth going pro You know, they don't have the levels to develop guys anymore So I my unofficial but not my my useless advice is not unofficial It's just not not coming from any place They need to care about but if you're if you're a high school kid and they're not going to pick in the first three rounds Just go to college. It's they don't have the levels to develop you.
They don't want to develop you anymore Uh, there's, there was a kid from, from Richmond, I just saw the other day, he's a free agent and he was a Benedictine, phenomenal ball player, is a shortstop, and he was, he got, he actually was a third rounder, but here he is. You know, he's like 21, he's a free agent, and it's like his career might be over, and he didn't play that badly. It's a meat grinder now.
Yeah. It's, it's tough to develop at all. In the major league system now, like you really have to almost do it, do the majority of the things yourself. Mainly in college sports. We talk now about transfer portal and NIL and how that's hurting the game and hurting this and hurting that. And in baseball, I think overall, if you look at the big picture of the game from little league to the majors.
Like these changes that have occurred in the minor leagues and with the drafter to the last few years, it really, really hurt that quite a bit. You got guys that, would have been that really cool story of coming up from nothing and starting at rookie ball and moving up that just doesn't really, really happen anymore. So the good thing is for those of us that are college baseball fans, too, we're seeing a lot more talent stay.
At our level and it's starting to create some parity even between what used to be the traditional power for power five, you're seeing really, really good guys in the group of five level. And that's why the Sunbelt is elevated. We've definitely taken advantage of that while still putting guys into the draft and into the league and getting on rosters. But it's a different world in college baseball than it was,, seven or eight years ago and not even thinking transfer portal or NIL yet.
Yeah, and you always have to remember, the scouts, they do their best they possibly can, and they're still not right. I mean, one third of first round picks never play a game in the big leagues. That's a stat that's over the last, over the first 40 years of the draft. A third of them never played a single day in the big leagues. And then you have, Vinny Pasquitino is a perfect example, right? That guy, he was the first pick of the 11th round.
Well, he was in the big leagues within two years and is an outstanding ballplayer. That guy should not have been on the way. You should not have had a way to the 11th round to pick a guy that good. And so that's a case of, what was it that they didn't see? Who knows?
There's, of course, it's a lot of analytically driven decision making now to like, you still have some scouts to put eyes on people, but, it's if your numbers don't come up right in the computers, then you could go from 3rd round to 11th round. And if you're not in the right environment, when you 1st land, it could be a quick exit when. And you're probably someone that could have been at the all star caliber, in the majors. I mean, think about Vinny.
I'm glad he got that opportunity and got up and showed himself, before the injury last year. And I think he's, he's gonna have a very long and successful career in the pros now because of it.
Yeah. It's a shame that fewer guys will get the opportunities that really baseball needs them to get. But, yeah, but again, this isn't a, this isn't a podcast about how they've screwed up Miley baseball. This is about how great ODU baseball is. So let me, there's three more guys I wanted to mention on the pitching staff just to make sure I kind of hit all the names. I, I think these guys will have an impact too on the pitching side. Stephen Trone is our side armor sophomore now.
He's a talented kid. He's a fighter. Great, great kid. Really, if you ever get a chance, we need to get Stephen on sometime. Talk to him for sure. Cause he's just a really good kid. Kellen Davis, he is a redshirt sophomore. Wow. He's been, so he's been around. This is his third year with the team. And then, Tyler Stott, who some might remember he was on the football team as a backup quarterback. He's now chosen baseball.
So those are three, returning guys, who've all seen various amounts of time on the mound. And you all could very easily find themselves in. Pitching big innings, depending on how things shake out and how they perform.
It'll be something to watch closely really over the first, like 10 to 15 games to see who's firing out of the bullpen, what moves is coach Fenwood making with. Trying to find the right spot for the right guys at the right time. But as you put it, it's a good problem to have if you're this coaching staff to have that many arms, to potentially, just be able to piece it together and get outs in all kinds of games.
Yeah, absolutely. And, Nick Slopezio is another freshman. We have a righty. He had a knee injury that he didn't play in the fall. So I'm not, I'm really, I haven't got a chance to talk to him and know where that is, if he's going to be healthy and compete, or if, just the way things are looking with the roster, if he'd be better off red shirting. I don't know, but he's there, another name worth looking out for. He's a very talented kid.
From, uh, pro five Academy, which is, another IMG like, Academy school where we've getting, we're getting a few kids out of there. Another great place that talent's coming out of.
Awesome. CB, thanks, for running us through the pitching staff there and sharing all of your knowledge, with me. And then also with all of our Monarch fans here that are gearing up, for the first pitch of the 2024 season.
Coming up next on the Hudson homers podcast. Our conversation with Jacob Gomez, who you've heard a good bit about today. We talked with him about the upcoming season. Playing with his brother and some flashbacks to that 21 regional appearance that he had against Jacksonville. Coming back from that we'll run through the 20, 24 season giving you a glimpse of what lies ahead for the monarchs. This year. Thanks so much for listening and stay tuned. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Welcome back to the Hudson Homers podcast, Monarch fans. We're joined today by Jacob Gomez, pitcher for Old Dominion Baseball. And of course my co host CB Wilkins. Jacob, thanks so much for spending a few minutes with us.
Thank you for having me, and thank you for the opportunity.
Absolutely. We want to jump in here and start talking about, your time at ODU and this season. But, you're one of the rare few in college sports these days that, has stayed with one college for your whole career. I know the transfer portal and all those things, it doesn't happen a whole lot, we'd love to hear a little bit about your thoughts on ODU, your experience here so far, and what has made you want to just commit to this program for your whole college career.
So, my freshman year was actually a lot different than past experience. It started with coven. So. We didn't get a lot of opportunity to be on the field because school was shut down a couple of times throughout the fall semester. But as a team, we came together, we either went to Longwood or. We threw in the middle of ODU campus, in the grass.
So it was definitely a different experience that I wasn't expecting, but, it was one that lasted forever because that year we ended up winning the conference USA championship and then ended up going to a regionals that year. So I think everything worked out how it should have been. Throughout the years, I kept developing, developing and, you know, I just, I couldn't find myself being somewhere else because this place has brought me so much joy being here.
And I also gained a lot of knowledge from our pitching coach, coach Marin and everyone else around them. I never, it never crossed my mind to ever enter the transfer portal as, uh, everyone else has. And I just kind of just set my, my grounds for being here, because everything has been, you know, the way I've always wanted college to be. It was just a great experience and, you I'm really looking forward for this last year. I think it's going to be a special
That's really great to hear, man, because, I've known you the whole time you've been here. I've thoroughly enjoyed you being at ODU the whole time. You're a great kid. You got a great family. And part of the joy of you sticking around is now you got your brother on the team.
Yeah, that's, that's pretty cool. Especially, since our, my senior year, his freshman year of high school got cut short because of COVID. So having the opportunity again to play with him,, is just another memory added to this list at
Yeah, I saw it. So I don't know if this happened again. I know I saw at least one time you guys faced off in the fall and Alex got a single off of you.
Yeah, I had to tip my cap to him. He's a gritty player. He deserves to be here. You know, ODU was the only one that actually offered him. Not a scholarship, but a preferred walk on spot. So I was really proud of him for that, he actually told me that he didn't want to go anywhere else besides ODU, if they ever gave him the opportunity. And which they did, so now, ever since he's been here, he's gained about 20 to 25 pounds. And he's actually starting to look like a true catcher behind the plate.
So, I'm actually really excited for his, his career at ODU.
That's great, man. He is a he is greedy is a great word for him. He's I like when I think about Alex, he doesn't try to do anything more than what he can do. He just wants to put the ball in play when he's hitting and that's really it's good to see guys know exactly who they are as a player, especially when they're as young as he is.
Absolutely. He's pro. I think he's actually the youngest kid on the team. We're probably second to that. So he still has a lot of work to do. He has, three really great catchers behind him or ahead of him. We have Evan Holman, Jackson Slater and Jackson Tone. So with them helping him out and showing him what not to do and the dues, it's really shaping him into a, like a more mature player than he was in high school.
Yeah, now on the mound, you can be a pretty talkative, fiery pitcher, and I know that's kind of your personality when you go out there, but tell me a little bit about, your mentality when you're out there on the mound and what inspires you to have that fiery passion when you're pitching.
So it actually, the fiery compassion actually started freshman year when coach Marin was trying to help me mentally visualize myself. striking everyone out. And he always told me the phrase be one for one, be on this one pitch, one mindset at a time. And ever since then, I stuck to that. And of course I added some fire at the ends if I struck a kid out in a big situation. In high school, I really, I was really to myself. Like I, I wasn't like as excited in the mountain.
Like I did really well in high school, but I never really had that. Like, visualization of me striking everyone out or having that fiery compassion. I definitely thank coach Marin for that. Definitely up to my game a lot. It made me more confident on the mounds, especially in tight situations. I'm just gonna keep rolling with it because it's working.
Well, we love these fans for
Yeah, it's really it is great to see and I don't know how much This is a thing you think of as you're doing it, but you're that intensity you bring and that fire and that Bravado where I mean you literally you're striking guys and jawing at them the whole way they're going back to the dugout and There was a game. Uh I want to say it was a coastal game.
was, It was a game where, ODU was down and you as a pitcher, which I think is really hard as a pitcher to swing momentum like this, but you were dicing them up and basically brought the team back into the game with your energy. I mean, that's just, that's really impressive.
Yeah, I actually remember that game. It was against Texas state. I believe Yeah. Yeah, we were down, I think we were down four runs when I came in into the fifth or sixth inning, and you know, it was, the first two innings were one, two, three, so I wanted to try and have that momentum I had on the mound translated into hitting, because it's, it just seems that everyone was down throughout the whole game, so I wanted to pick everyone up, and needless to say, it worked.
The bench was doing their job firing up the hitters before going up to bat. And the hitters were doing their job getting hits and being on base to have the opportunity to win that game. But I wouldn't have done that without the help of my teammates on the bench, because even when we were down four runs, they still were firing me up after every strikeout or pop up or a double play, and it really turned the momentum around in that
Are you a big guy when you're on the bench for for hollering and yelling and stuff?
Yeah, so there was a couple times where I've gotten yelled at for, uh, being too loud or saying the wrong things.
I mean, I fully believe that.
But, I mean, it all, it all means well. I'm just trying to be there for my team and, make them better. So therefore we have more success later on in the season.
No, I mean, I definitely see I think you see it like when you're watching pro baseball You watch down to the the playoffs in the World Series. You see the teams that are having the most fun Are the ones that play the best. And they, like, when I think back to y'all in 2021, that was a group of guys who were just having fun and being ridiculous. And so I think, you know, doing what you're doing and really trying to be there for each other and just have a great time that leads to success.
Yeah, absolutely.
Any idea of what your role is going to look like this year? I know there's a lot of great arms on that pitching staff this year. you know if you're looking at rotation midweek coming out of the bullpen closer, any insights you, you are allowed to give us, I should say.
So nothing's really set in stone as of right now, this coming inner squad on Friday.
John and I are going to be throwing five innings each, so I think me, John, Dylan Brown, and Trent Buchanan are the only ones throwing five, but I could be wrong on that, but the way I see it is like whatever, whatever role the coaches end up putting me in, I'm going to try and be the best that there is, I've been put in spot starts, I've been, I've closed, I've middle relieved, so I've done everything so I'm, I'm, I really don't necessarily care what role I'm in as long as, I'm doing well for
the team and we just keep rolling.
I was going to ask if you had one you prefer, but you just told me you don't care. So that's great.
Yeah. I've been put in every role, throughout my career here, so, nothing would be surprising to me. I would definitely be prepared for any role that they put
I mean, you've been good in every role they put you in. So you are prepared. It's great to see.
Yeah.
Looking back to the fall a little bit and kind development over the summer, you do you feel like you threw in the fall and then how are you feeling from an arm perspective? Here now in the preseason as we get pretty close to first game.
So this was actually my first year playing summer ball and I played up in the Cape Cod League for the Harwich Mariners. I went with Sam Armstrong, Kenny LaVarie and Hunter Fitzgerald. We all played on the same team and it was definitely a blast. I had four opportunities in Cape, just cause there's a lot of new guys coming in the roster and stuff, our pitching depth in the Cape was pretty deep. Out of the four appearances, I think I did pretty well.
There was one game where, you know, I got a little out of hands and started walking. People and there's errors on the field. It was definitely a huge mental adjustment that I had to make for the fall, especially since there's going to be a whole new team. We had just around 25 new guys, including transfers and freshmen. So I knew coming into the fall this year, I had to change my mental game from the summer, to be able to compete.
And it just felt like my freshman year coming in, you know, I had a. Uh, there was a lot of old guys, experienced guys. So had to compete and really dig down into my roots and understands like my role as a player on ODU. Overall, I just had to change the way I went about my business. I had to create a new routine thanks to Nick Murray. He's one of the assistant pitching coaches here at ODU and He helped me understand being on a consistent routine will lead to success on the field.
And so far, my fall was probably the best fall I had., I jumped VLO from years prior. I was, you know, 85 to 88. And this fall I was 88 to 91. And it's, leading into this season where, my last outing I was 88 to 91, but the outing before that I was 90 to 92, so there's a lot more consistency And the routine that I'm doing and it's going towards the field, so I'm pretty happy about it
How has that extra velocity, affected things for you? You think
Body wise I mean I feel really good because the routine that Nick Murray gave us really focuses on Strengthening the specific muscles to be able to throw harder And I think for the hitters this year, I'm kind of scared for them because it seems like the feedback I'm getting from is my ball is a bowling ball and it never stops going. So hopefully everything works out and, I just stay on the routine and the Velo will stay the same.
that's exciting. I like that.
that's, that's an awesome thing to hear about the Vela going up. I want to jump back a little bit to, 2021 team that went to the regional. You were a freshman on that team. You really pitched one of your best performances of the year in the regional first of all, what was it like having that experience having, you know, first regional and you're coming into pitch and you throw so well in a critical first game of a regional.
And then how is that experience helping you now and translating it to some of the other guys that are newer to the team?
so that, so the experience being on that older team was actually really awesome. You had a group of guys where you just wanted to get better at the field and then when you're off the field, we're all hanging out, there's never a day where we didn't do anything as a team. And it, it really helped. The camaraderie on the fields, because if someone made an error, we wouldn't get mad at them necessarily. We'll just pick them up and make sure that they, they do better the next time.
So going into regional, I've never really experienced baseball like that before, because, we're in Rutherford, New Jersey. We never really made it past state finals, and the games weren't really with a big crowd or nothing really to this extent. So it was definitely a new experience, and I was definitely nervous, very, very nervous coming into that game.
But I just knew in the back of my head that my team was relying on me to help them win, especially since our starter, that game, Hunter Gregory ended up getting hurt. By getting hit by a hard line drive into the ankle. So I knew I just needed to go in there and do my job, get outs, and that's exactly what I did. And I'll never forget that, that experience because it made me realize how much more potential I have as a baseball player in general. Because not a lot of people get that experience.
There's about 360 division one baseball teams in the United States. Being able to be in that position was just amazing and ending off being ranked 11th in the country was just phenomenal
Yeah, that South Carolina game the day after was, uh, amazing. That's the crazy experience I've had at a baseball game
yet. I mean, that's the most rowdy baseball game I've ever been. To like whenever we got a strikeout, you feel the vibration from all the screams in the dugout. I mean, it was just an awesome experience. There's about 10, 000 fans there. So
and they were not nice fans. They were,
were definitely
mean, they were going after people's families. Like they were, they were some not great folks. It was an experience.
Oh yeah. They were yelling in the bullpen telling us we suck and stuff like that. But he used to say we, we, we showed them what's up and we held our own ground and won that game because Ryan Moore came in and did his job and you know, the bats got some hits and runs and I mean, it was, it was definitely one of the Best baseball games I've ever been a part
Yeah. Best I've ever saw. Um, Aaron holiday pitch too.
Was, he was mowing them down with his 95, 98 mile an hour fastball. And they just had absolutely no chance. So the way we set up that game was just in our favor. Like we were just so successful up to that point. Like there's no way we weren't winning that game.
I think you can credit a lot of that bullpen set up to your ability to come in that situation in the first game. And save a lot of arms for that matchup with South Carolina with how well you pitched. There was something sad, like obviously we wanted to have that regional at home and we're in the process of building the ballpark so that we don't have to go on the road to host a regional again.
There was, I had a little bit of satisfaction for the rest of the tournament that the stands were fairly empty because South Carolina got sent home after the hell that they were giving you, throughout that whole game.
Yeah, the whole experience overall, I mean, I, I definitely had a, a good part in, in that success, but I mean, it was overall group effort. It can't just be me. I'm just one person, you know, Jason Hartline coming in there, he was, he was at his peak performance. I think he had a sub one ERA that year, so he was, he was just mowing guys down like. We were just connected as a whole, team and, I think that's what really brought us to that position.
And I, I'm really excited for this team because I'm starting to feel the same way with the players and everyone. We have great fellowship, and, we're just trying to play to win essentially.
I know that bullpens are always a little bit funky, a little bit odd, a little too much time on their hands sometimes down there. What's something that is like an ODU bullpen tradition or superstition, that goes on down there? And I'll preface this by saying, we're going to ask every pitcher that comes on the same question. So know that you are not going to be the only one being asked about this. I
No, yeah. So, uh, I don't think we have any superstitions. But before the season starts, we always have this little competition. It's, uh, the old dirty competition where we separate into two teams. And we just try and have a way to still compete against each other, but in a fun way. So like some of the things we do is we play golf with the bats around the baseball fields. The other day we played, uh, keep up with the soccer ball.
So it's just like a lot of, a lot of little things that like brings us together. But it's also competitive. So we don't lose that like competitive drive. And throughout the years, I, I see that it really helps people form a mentality where you can compete, whether if it's baseball related or not. And I think that really correlates to when we get on the field and start mowing guys down,
think that needs to be the next, t shirt that we put on, mow em down.
So Alex, uh, your brother, Alex he has a little bit more of an energetic personality than you you obviously your brother, you've been around, but he hasn't been, you guys haven't really been in the same place for the last three years. Is he wearing on you at all? Or are you just like, no, it's my brother. I love him.
No, he's definitely my brother and I love him to death. Thank God that we're not living together because I think I would rip his head off.
There you go. Okay, good. That's, that's what, that's why it is. Okay.
Yeah, I think the coaches did a really good job separating the brothers like me and Alex and Marco and Kenny just so that they can have their own opportunity to, you know, be themselves and not live under our shadow. Because in order for the, in my opinion, in order for my brother to be as successful as he wants to be, he has to be his own person. And of course, I'm going to be there for him.
Whether he likes it or not I will always be there for him and, just make sure, I'm just here to make sure that he's staying on the right path and not drifting.
Well, Jacob, I really appreciate you. You coming and joining us, man. You've always been someone I thoroughly enjoy getting to see and talk to you when I get out to the ballpark and I'm glad that anybody that listens to this got a chance to dig in to see what a good kid you are, man.
Thank you, I really appreciate that CB.
Thank you so much, Jacob, for joining us. Fans stay tuned. We're going to give a quick run through of ODU's schedule in the next segment. But until then go Monarchs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We want to just run through the schedule a little bit. We're not going to go detail or game by game or anything like that, but just a general overview of what we're looking at. It's not too different of a schedule from last year. We've got, some Northern schools coming down, to do some series at home early on. We got Charlotte early on. But the ones that I definitely want to point to are these quote unquote one off games. We've got a couple of matchups with Virginia.
Who's ranked, I think I've seen them ranked as high as eight in some polls. Have you seen higher?
I think I saw 10 today. So they're up there.
Yeah, they're, they're up there. Uh, we continue the, the home and home with East Carolina, who's another power in the region. I think I've seen them somewhere like in the mid teens.
Yeah. I've seen them in the teens. I, so we have three, I've seen rank those two and then, East Carolina, somewhere around the late teens, or not, I'm sorry, coastal Carolina, the Carolinas. Yeah. So UVA, East Carolina and coastal Carolina are all pretty much ranked in every one of the things I've seen.
There's definitely some tough teams on this schedule. I think we may have upped our competition a little bit earlier in the year, at least compared to last season. George Washington historically is not a power by any means, but I think we, we may have done a little bit better job of getting some teams on the schedule that. Will be a bit more of a challenge for us kind of all the way through the three game series that maybe we had last year.
Yeah, I like this schedule. I mean, I love that we're continuing the rivalry with Charlotte. Clearly we've built a good relationship with them. But you know, we went down there last year, they're coming here this year. And it's going to, and next year we're going to go down there again. That was actually, people might not know that was the first school I actually went to out of high school. I went to, I went to UNC Charlotte before Old Dominion. And nothing against them.
I, I didn't do well there and that was all my own fault. Uh, so I do enjoy getting, whenever I get a chance to go down there and they always, they're competitive. They're, they're just such a. They have the same kind of thing I would say about, Coastal Carolina. They're just so pesky. They put the ball in play It's very annoying. They just keep putting the ball in play.
And that's as a baseball team That's it's extremely annoying if you're on the other end of it You think you get two strikes like I got him. I got him These guys just find a way they use that old school baseball and put the ball in on the field.
Well CB, I'm glad you finally made the good decision to get out of UNC Charlotte and head on up to Old Dominion. I'm not a fan of, of Charlotte and their airport logo. And if you look at the two logos next to each other, you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about. Uh, nothing gave me more pleasure than ending their season two years ago in football. We beat them at home. Uh, I think it was two years ago when they were in Norfolk to play us at the Bud.
Uh, they had a volunteer assistant or assistant coach sit down at the end of the bench, trash talking Rally Alley the entire game. It started out fun until they started losing. And then I think it got a. A little unfriendly beyond that, I think we only got two of the three games in against them last year. We split that series, two blowouts going in either direction.
Would love to, to treat them with a nice three game sweep here as it's kind of probably one of the, the better non conference teams that we have, for a three game set.
Yeah, that's a good one. And yeah, i'm with you. I'm all for seeing my old school lose Uh, i'm very excited about the Rutgers series One, Rutgers came here, I think it was 23 or 24 years in a row. So that was like a yearly tradition, that kind of stopped for a couple of years. So it's nice to see them back. I mean, I've never heard, you know, when Todd Frazier came through at Rutgers and he had about 900 against us, three years in a row.
So watch the watch the Todd father before he was the Todd father. Uh, but we have Joey DiCerro, who was with ODU the last four years. He's transferred to Rutgers now. I saw he was an all conference preseason first team, which is great. That just shows, you know, he. The talent he had and what they're expecting. I don't know what role he's going to have at Rutgers, but I'm excited to see the kid and see him come back. He can pitch well and make it still loose. I think we can do that. Right.
He can, he can throw up zeros. And then after he leaves the game, that somebody else can get blown
Hey, that, that, that's all fine with me. As long as Bobby D can meet us up in Rally Alley like old times. I think we could have
best part of Joey D coming is his dad, Bobby D coming down, who is a, uh, a complete lunatic and a fantastic human
Yes, I'm a big fan of Bobby D and we've had some good times hanging out in Rally Alley so hopefully he is down for that. We may have to let him say a few words, probably carefully edited, but we'll be able to to get him involved there. But yeah, definitely.
Yeah. You always have a little audio in
yeah, Yeah. Well, luckily we pre record so we can, uh, we can do what we need to do there,
I've got a lot of bleeps and, uh, on, on Bobby D. I'm also, uh, and again, some of the series, this is what happens. You play teams over and over again, but I'm excited about Princeton coming in there. They're pitching coach, uh, Joe Homaker. He played at ODU graduated from ODU. He's had a great career. Coaching a few different colleges coaching with the Orioles and the minors for a few years so this will be a second year of christmas. So it was such a blast.
Uh getting to see joe last year and So hopefully he's with princeton for a long time and uh, it was very fun getting to talk to him and he's like man I'm teaching a class at princeton. He's like how ridiculous is that? He said it doesn't say much good for the for the uh institution That he's like that joe homaker is teaching a class at princeton. I was like, all right That's a fair
I mean, hey if he's doing it and he's doing it well, why not? We can get some, bring some old Dominion flair up there to, uh, to Princeton. So
Not a lot of ODU grads teaching at Princeton, but we
no, no, I was not qualified for that position. Apparently we'll all keep applying. Uh, well, I'm, I'm looking forward to a couple of our away conference series. I think we've got some, some pretty cool ones here. The big one I think that most teams are going to serve, most people are going to serve is at Coastal Carolina. Uh, we know that Monarch fans travel pretty well to Coastal, we proved it with the bowl game a couple years ago.
They're only about 10 15 minutes away from the beach and Coastal is going to be, really one of the, I think, one of the best programs in the Sun Belt this year. So I'm definitely looking forward to that if I can sneak away and get down there for a couple games. Uh, it'll be about a five and a half hour drive for me from Richmond. A little longer for you all in the 757. But the other one I have circled is at Texas State. Because I remember watching them on ESPN Plus against, I think it was Texas.
And their stadium was packed in one of the loudest college environments I've ever seen. So it's, that, that's one I have circled that if I, if I'm going to fly somewhere for a baseball road trip, it is going to be that Texas state series down in San Marcos, spend some time in San Antonio, some time in Austin, eat tacos and brisket, and I will be quite happy and content watching baseball down there.
You brought up the coastal series. That to me highlights a really important part of the stretch of the series of the season for odu if you look right before the coastal series, we have that tuesday. We're at uva, right? So again, this is a ranked team probably still gonna be ranked the beginning of april Then that weekend like I said heading down the coast of carolina So again pre season ranked team and it'll be a conference weekend The Wednesday right after that on the road at East Carolina.
So that's three teams in a row, all on the road, five games in a row on the road against ranked teams. The next weekend got James Madison at home. So again, James Madison, probably not ranked, but going to be a very good team. They've got some good local kids, Mason Dunaway and Nick Poole. so I'm excited to see them, gonna be some good baseball. And then the next Tuesday we had UVA coming here to play a game at Harbor park. So that's a stretch of nine games. Right.
Kind of in the middle of the season against some really good opponents. You have three of the four teams I mentioned are currently ranked, and that's going to be, it's going to really tell you who you are as a baseball team.
And I wouldn't sleep on South Alabama either. I, I think that they are down there. They think they're on the verge of kind of turning the corner and becoming a much bigger player in the Sunbelt. You got to think too, some of these Sunbelt teams look at Old Dominion as. The same way they do Southern Miss and Coastal and teams that have historically been very good and we get the best shot of all the teams in our conference.
We have a target on our back for pretty much the majority of the teams that we play in conference. So, you know, that's a, that is a brutal stretch, but what kicks it all off is a. Three game homestand against South Alabama, which I think we would love to see two out of three, three out of three, just to get some good momentum heading up to Charlottesville a couple of days later.
I'm very excited about South Alabama because they have a former ODU guy. We got Robbie Petrosi, who played here for, I think, three seasons. He's down there again as an outfielder. Some people remember him as, uh, he had a home run and then on the celebration of the home run blew out his knee, but then came back later in the year with the knee brace on still. Hit some pinch hit home runs, actually DH some games with, with a a torn knee. Uh, so Robbie's a wonderful kid.
I'm very excited to see him, but you're right, I think. Your point about everybody gunning for us and trying to play our I mean the conference schedule is a buzzsaw there is no Easy games. We're seeing that we saw that in football this year. We're seeing that in the basketball I mean what the basketball just a couple weeks ago the uh was a ulm came in and they were Their record was just as bad as the ODU men's record was and they came and put a spanking on us, right?
So that there's and we did this but we did the same thing right before them to marshall Uh, you know showing that there's no easy games no matter if you think they're a dog They're not they're in your conference. They are going to fight you, which makes for really exciting baseball.
We've talked about this on the football podcast, but like the margin of error in the Sun Belt is so tiny. I think there were some teams even in Conference USA that if you weren't playing your best, you could maybe still win a game, whether it's football, baseball, something else. There are no breaks in the Sunbelt conference in any sport, like any team will beat you on any day. And it just takes one little thing could be the reason that, you lose like that margin for error just doesn't exist.
Like it does, especially like in the conference USA. Now, like there's some teams that if we were still there, we would be destroying. You cannot sleep on anybody in the Sunbelt, especially in a sport like baseball and anything can happen.
It just makes for Such a good product again, when you're watching a game, you know, you're in, I mean, when does the conference start in March, end of March, right? So the the end of middle of March, so you're, you're watching games in the middle of March, you're two months away from meaningful games, right? Like playoff type games. Well, you're not, you're in a playoff game immediately. When Georgia Southern comes here, March 15th, it's going to be a playoff. From go.
Teams are fighting and they know every single win I get now Is what is going to matter and then it's going to lead to me having a little bit easier later Maybe I get a day off when I need a day off. So it's it's a bloodbath. It's it's it makes it very fun
Yeah, it makes it fun. It can make it frustrating as a fan sometimes, because through the natural course of the baseball season, like you're going to have a stretch where the team is just not playing well, like there just aren't enough guys hitting, pitchers aren't exactly on their a game.
And you could have a series like that, where you go to a team that, in theory you should sweep and you end up dropping two out of three, like that will happen in college baseball, just like it happens in pro baseball to think like it's. It's important to kind of always zoom out before you, you go too nuts over something and kind of look for longer term trends.
If you don't come to play, we saw at the end of last season, if you're down in the slightest, there are teams that will absolutely take your head off to get out of the basement in the Sunbelt.
Nobody nobody feels bad for you. If you're doing poorly, they're going to take advantage of it. And you know, and that's where I as baseball is my main thing that I like. And so I have a very baseball mentality when it comes to losses. You know, you have a long season a loss is at the end of the world, in a football season, you got so few games, a loss means a lot. You saw what happened to Georgia, right?
Georgia loses one game and somehow they're not good enough to be in the national tournament. You know, basketball, same thing. There's, there's not a lot of games. You lose a game or two, like it's a lot in baseball, you know? Yeah. You know, if you lose a couple of games, it's not a huge deal, but you still have to have that perspective of like, okay, that's why we're going to play. I mean, in baseball, you can be playing five games in a week.
You know, if you, you can't get too stressed out about one or two games when you got five the whole week, it's, you have to take it seriously. You have to want to win every single game, but you also can't as a fan, but especially I, I definitely don't think the coaches and players. Are gonna freak out. I think it's more it's more for the fans, you know, don't you know If they if you do have a weekend where you lose two out of three, it's like well that sucks.
It's not fun Uh, but you gotta be realistic about it and say look it's a long season Sometimes like you said that happens sometimes you just have a weekend where it wasn't working for you And it was really working well, but sometimes you just run into it I mean, what was the kid for charlotte last year that struck out 17 guys? Like what are you gonna do about that? That guy was just pitching the game of his life.
Yeah. I mean, you're going to run into the buzzsaw sometimes in baseball, even the worst team may have a really, really great weekend where they can put up double digit runs and hold you to one or two. I try to look at it as more of.
Okay, we've lost two series in a row, uh, hope we don't get swept this weekend because then that may signal something of a bigger problem, but on a game to game basis, you just, you can't live and breathe with every single outcome and, I'll tell you, we talked about that really rough stretch, uh, for ODU where they're at Virginia at coastal at East Carolina, then come back home and play James Madison. And then, oh yeah, the following Tuesday, they're going to play Virginia again.
We're not going to be throwing our race versus their race on a Tuesday or a Wednesday or something like that. Like you're not going to see the top pitcher for them or the top pitcher for us. Cause we're going to save them and we're going to win, do everything we can to win the conference games. We definitely want to beat Virginia and East Carolina, cause those are great resume builders come in very handy at the end of the season.
You're not going to push all your chips in the table for a Tuesday game against East Carolina, and then end up sacrificing an entire weekend series against Coastal because your pitching's out of whack. So there's kind of the long game you have to play as a coach too of putting aside those feelings of wanting to beat the hell out of a team that's kind of been the baseball power in the state.
So that, that way you can take two out of three on the road at Coastal and, you know, maybe be the two seed or the one seed instead of the three or the four at the end of the season.
yeah, mid midweek baseball in college is such a A weird thing because like I said, so you're gonna play uba and then we can't play ecu So these are some of the premier games you're going to play all season and you know, even for them, you know, we're, we're not, you know, we're not in the ACC. So I'm sure, UVA isn't looking at us like, wow, this is one of our biggest games of the year, but they don't look down on us.
I'm sure they know it's like, oh, do you, I mean, we had, we had a run for a few years where we beat them like seven at eight times. So it's not like. Uva and especially their coach was the same coach. Brown O'Connor has been there forever. He knows he's not taking no to you. Uh, lately but we're not going to throw our ace.
They're going to throw their big guys You just got to hope that on that given day again for both teams They're probably your big weak guys because they're not consistent enough to be your weekend guys right now so you just have to hope that your Less consistent guys have a better day than they're less consistent guys.
When you get those flashes of things that they're getting a flash at the right time, so it's maybe college baseball is very strange because you really, really, like I said, it's a huge resume builder. But at the same time, you really can't throw your best pitchers. You know, maybe in the bullpen you can throw, uh, guys a few innings because then it can still come back by Friday. But you're not going to have your top starters out there for that game.
Uh, which makes it weird, but that's part of the fun. Because you can have anybody beat anybody in one game. That's why baseball plays series.
You're talking about all these pitchers and the multiple options to potentially be starters. That actually makes me even more excited for these mid week games because Maybe the guy that we're starting on a Tuesday is really working for that, that Saturday spot, that Friday spot or that Sunday spot, and they've been good. They just maybe haven't cracked that top three for us because the rest of our group is so good.
So you talk about, sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, sometimes you can be that buzzsaw. If you've got that depth and you're starting pitching. And then of course the depth that we have, we know we have in our, in our lineup. So, I'm always excited for those games, but I think I'm a little bit more amped up now, knowing. The arms that we could potentially be starting on a random Tuesday against UVA.
Yeah, and this is a rarity, this, having UVA as the fourth game of the season, the first Tuesday. So, Finney can come into the year knowing, okay, whoever is that, gonna pitch that Tuesday, I can have somebody who's stretched out, somebody who's good, and somebody who I really, really believe in. So you're right, that guy who pitches that first Tuesday is UVA. By the end of the year, I probably know that guy could be the ace, right? He could be the Friday night guy. Uh, we really don't know.
But, and you know, in the same way that guy can be set up for the next Tuesday against East Carolina, right? So you've got two weeks in a row where you kind of know you've got bigger games. And so if you have that fourth starter and have them set up and it's, you just decide that, Hey, this is the guy that's going to come in.
I mean, there is some argument that you could, it could be a guy that maybe you really think he should be on the weekend, but it's actually more important this point in the year to have him thrown on the Tuesday instead of say Sunday.
Yeah. And that, that's absolutely true. And, coach Finwood, I know we'll mix and match and, he's not going to just sit by and let UVA take those games. He's going to put dudes out there that want to win. And I can probably see the guys in the dugout want to win that game too. So, uh, fun for fans, fun for them. It's a great measuring stick and to have. Ranked teams that are that close to us that will, will play us on a consistent basis is awesome.
I know there have been some talk around fans, you know, like, why don't we do a home and home series where we have, three days have UVA come in or have East Carolina. UVA is not going to go on the road for a non conference, series. They might go play in a tournament or something, but they have a absolutely beautiful ballpark that they redid a couple of years ago and they have a long list of. Schools up north that want to come down and play those three game series.
And then East Carolina is kind of in that same boat too. You know, maybe we'll see what the future holds. If there's a season we're not playing at the Bud that may come to pass on the road or something. But I, I don't, I would not expect this to get a three game weekend series with either UVA or East Carolina, anytime in, in the near future.
Yeah, I wouldn't either. And, but it's great that we have that relationship with them, that they're willing to come and play us and willing to let us come play them. It was nice back when we were in the same conference in East Carolina that we got to play when we have those weekend series, you know, having, I know the one year, I think it might've been the last year we were in the same conference. We had, Jeff Hoffman, came and pitched.
For East Carolina, he ended up being the I think the fifth overall pick in the draft that year and we beat him And so it was always great seeing when you're getting to see it's fun to see those guys It's more fun when you do get to see that weekend arm talent That you know don't necessarily get on the Tuesday midweek games
Yeah, that, that is a lot of fun, but I, I got to backtrack us here a little bit because you mentioned something earlier and I had to go track it down. So make sure I. Was accurate with what I was saying. So you're talking about Robbie Petrosi and the home runs he hit while he was injured, basically a bum knee could barely even do the home run shot. But take you back to the 2021 season we were playing.
which is amazing season
Oh yeah. Went to the regional, all of that good stuff. We're playing Louisiana tech and the conference USA championship game. Eight then he comes in and pinch hits and hits a bomb to right center. And if you remember from watching that, they had train tracks that were maybe 75 to a hundred feet behind the right field and the right center fence train tracks that would go by occasionally an actual train.
And I just remember Petrosi hitting that and everybody I was with was like, he just cleared the train tracks. And that just set up what was an awesome back and forth extra inning games that I believe ODU won because of Kyle Battles. Home run in the top of the tech. He hit a two run bomb. So you just brought back some good memories there. That was a definitely a fun moment.
That season is what spawned dollars for dingers, which is how our group went from a text chat group and a tailgate group for football to what you're seeing now with podcasts and website and all of that. So. We look at that baseball season as really what kind of was the launching off point for everything that we're doing now. So that was a fun time for sure.
Yeah. That was a, that was a pretty magical season. All the guys that gotta be a part of that, that was, that was just something special. And, hopefully the 2024 campaign ends up being just like that because, I mean, that was a special group of guys. I'll tell you one thing that I think. People don't remember about that year. Obviously 2021 is right after COVID. What's CUSA set up that year to try to make travel a little bit less was having a four game weekends.
So we have the game Friday, dining game Friday, then a two seven in games on Saturday. So Saturday, double headers and nine inning on Sunday. And I really think what that did is it forced you to have good, deep pitching. It forced you to have. Four guys who could start four guys who could throw pretty deep into a game. Uh, because you kind of knew you couldn't have the guy come out and just throw three or four innings, like they needed to get your five, six, seven.
I mean, we have, we have plenty of times where we'd have the top and bottom half of that double header. We just had two guys throw a complete game or, or maybe used one reliever between the two games. And that really, I think was such a benefit. For ODU that that making us have to be deep in the pitching and have the pitching get stretched out. That I think sometimes it ends up you do kind of because you don't have to do it.
You end up pulling some guys maybe before you need to necessarily you probably could let them work it out. So that was that's one thing that I think is always worth to me mentioning about the 2021 year in the midst of all the amazing things and guys stepping up and playing. Uh, at their very best was, was just the general setup of how the season was created a situation that allowed them.
To to play their best and put them made them very ready to go for a tournament You know when you've been used to playing four games of three days every weekend playing that tournament wasn't that big of a deal
And there were some dudes on that roster out of that pitching staff, especially the bullpen with Aaron Holiday, Noah Dean, we saw Jason Hartline, uh, coming out of the pen too. Uh, Jacob Gomez was also on that team and pitched in that conference USA championship game. You're right on the money. We, we had. A bunch of dudes that could come out of that pen and get some outs and some dudes that threw hard. I'm excited to get back to, to seeing that, from the team this year.
Just think about the number of guys on that team who are now in the league.
Yeah, a lot of pro players ron moore and hunter gregory. We're uh, we're both stars And that's I actually just saw hunter the other night at five guys after the basketball game was great To talk to him and his mom for a little while about, you know, he's, he's heading out to Florida. I think he said this week to go down for spring training with the Blue Jays. So it's, it's exciting to see our guys and see how well they're doing. And again, just really, really good people.
That's one of my favorite things about ODU baseball, especially since coach Finwood has been here, that they just really bring in this high quality human beings, which makes it a lot more fun to watch.
Well, we're excited to see how they do on the field. We're excited to talk to them and learn more about their stories here on the Hudson Homers podcast. Thank you all so much for tuning in to these first couple episodes of the Hudson Homer podcast. Please make sure you subscribe. So, you know, when our new episodes are coming out and, we hope to catch you at an ODU game down at the bud at some point this season, but until then, on behalf of my cohost here, CB Wilkins, thank you and go Monarchs.
go Monarchs.
Yeah.