CB and Gary go live as the Monarchs wrap up a weekend sweep of the Dukes. ODU hosts a very tough Coastal Carolina team Thursday-Saturday at War Memorial to wrap the regular season.

Yeah.

What is up CB?

Nothing but we're doing it.

We'll do it live.

We'll do it live.

Yes, we are live right now.

Uh, if you're listening a few days later, the, of course, the audio and the video

recording will be out and available.

Uh, but we're headed to the top of the eighth right now in the O-D-U-J-M-U game.

ODU is up four to two.

We, uh, we can't show the game.

We are not even really supposed to talk that much about it, but

we'll be creative here today.

Only two more innings to go, and we've already won the series anyway.

How, how do I as a, uh, as, as the person here share this and make sure

people that are currently out there know?

Do I need to go to the Monica's page and does it show, let's see.

Does it show that we're live?

Yes.

Anyone subscribe to us on YouTube?

We'll, on YouTube Get an alert and Instagram live as well.

So we are, it should be fully covered today.

Okay.

I will, I'll share the link on the YouTube on, uh, the Facebook for the olds.

Uh, yes.

Maybe

the Twitter, maybe the Twitter for the olds,

whoever it is.

I finally have an Instagram now and I was having fun with metal songs and

pictures of our pictures this week.

So.

Got a little weed eater today for Blake, and he's been pretty good.

What, five and a third I think.

Yes.

Two arms.

I think it was five and two thirds, I think.

Yeah.

In the box here he was.

He's pretty solid here.

Yeah.

I had the box up a second ago myself somewhere and my mini things.

So you did five and no, five and a third.

You're right.

And Kellen got to, and then Nick Sulpizio who's on a little, little

streak here all of a sudden,

I mean, he's, uh, he's looking all right, we're finally getting some

arms to bounce back at the right time, which I think is pretty key.

Uh, it's, it's kind of feels like it's all kind of coming together.

Like we're playing baseball all of a sudden,

hey, in a good time of year to start doing it.

And I, I see that our links are working because there are Okay.

People popping in here.

We love that.

So welcome everyone that has just joined us.

Uh, we are watching the game live.

We can't show it.

Uh, but ODU is up four to two in the top of the eighth, already has the series

in the bag, but I. Really helpful for us if we can win this last one, it

gets to 15 wins with one series to go.

Yeah.

Well this, this weekend's gone pretty well as far as the, um, the other teams

helping, not, not just ou doing their job, but other teams like we needed,

uh, Georgia Southern to win two outta three against Texas State, so that

way they didn't get too far ahead.

And that's exactly how that worked.

And some of the other ones worked out.

It's just, it's been going well this weekend for what we needed to have happen.

Yeah.

If I knew that I just needed to tweet about what ODU baseball needs to Right.

I started doing this a long time ago, but yeah, we've been doing that

the first week of the season.

Yeah.

But I tweet yesterday, it was, who do you need to root for ODU, obviously South

Alabama to win to Troy and Texas State.

We, we hit the whole parlay there, the whole thing cashed.

Uh, so today it's really just, we need to win.

There are some things that could help us, but uh, like app State losing

would, I think officially put them out from getting in the top five or six.

But they've lost 11 in a row now.

They are in a tailspin at the moment,

which is, you know, they're a good team.

We saw 'em, they, they, they played us well and yeah, it's, it's crazy

what can happen with these streaks.

Yes.

I see Aaron Zelensky is there in the comments watching.

There we go.

Nice.

Twitter or X, whatever we're calling it these days.

Nice little walk for Tahraun.

Tahraun Hammond, after not playing for a few weeks.

He's played this week.

He's done really well.

Yes.

Yeah, he's been, uh, he's been awesome.

I think it's 'cause we had him on the show.

He's had a great weekend.

Yes it is.

It is.

I,

I was worried this thing would become a curse for whatever player joined, but

that seems to no have the opposite effect

this year.

I mean, now that you, now that you've named it, it will be,

there's a nice bunt for Evan.

Oh, that's gonna be a hit for Evan.

There we go.

Nice.

Nice bunt

for Evan.

You're clearly ahead of me by a few seconds on the broadcast.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Maybe.

I hope I'm not, if I'm ruining it for anyone, I'm just gonna

ruin it in the nice things.

I I'll ruin the nice things.

Yeah.

Nice.

Uh, Evan probably going for a, just a sacrifice bunt and, and got it

right past the, uh, pitcher and into that no man's land triangle.

Yeah.

Here's a nice review of it.

Uh, beautiful.

The first baseman kind of made the right move that turned out to be the wrong move.

Oh, oh, oh.

No one covering Beautiful.

Yeah.

Well, Luke Waters is someone we're gonna have to talk about a lot.

Woo.

'cause he has awoken this weekend.

He was, what, five for five yesterday.

Let off today's game with the hit, had the game winner on Friday night, driving

in two runs and the 12th will put us up.

Uh, three hits in that game.

Yeah.

He is one for three today.

I mean, he is, yeah.

Lemme see.

I had, I was getting together our, you know, 'cause we like

to get our numbers for guys.

I've already made the graphic with Luke as the hitter of the week.

'cause I mean, come on.

Um, coming into the game, he was eight for 13.

So, let's see.

So now he'd be, uh, nine for 16 on the week with a double

two Homers, uh, five rbis.

Uh, yeah.

Five r you know, four rbis, uh, three walks.

Yeah.

I mean, hell, hell of a week for Luke and the Yeah, when Plus had been talking

about him and of course his dad, Roger Waters, who played football at JMU

department for a while, uh, they've been kind of seeking him out on camera.

I feel like every opportunity they get, he was

wearing the, uh, the Bud Bomber shirt yesterday.

Yes.

Yeah.

Uh, he's always been a big supporter of us.

Always a nice guy.

Appreciate he's bought me.

They're,

we've got another, um, Delmar High School kid.

I think he's a 26 grad that, you know, Roger coaches obviously up there is

coming to ODU, uh, in another year.

So we're, we're not gonna stop the train of the, uh, the great, um,

kids from the, uh, Eastern shore.

Yeah.

If we can get some more like Luke, that would be awesome.

Yeah.

Um, but man, just o overall this weekend, I mean, we were

up against it a little bit.

I felt like on Friday, anytime you go to extras, I feel like the advantage

is always to the home team because they hit last and our bullpen did a

tremendous job throughout that game.

Yeah.

To keep it tied, keep us in it, and then ultimately hold on for

12 innings to get us through that.

Yeah.

Big day for bullpen.

Ethan Hubble just getting better and better as the season goes on.

I mean, he came up big.

He, he had some, you know, in the midst of three score the settings, he

had some pitches that looked terrible.

You know, he, he had one pitch, I think it's one of the

best pitches I've ever seen.

He, it was that kind of, I dunno if it's a curve ball slider that came

in and the, the right handed batter looked like his knees were shaking.

He thought it was gonna hit him in his back, and it loops in there and it's,

I mean, really, like, probably the best pitch Ethan's ever thrown in his life.

And then immediately after, he probably tried to do the

same thing, kind of overcooks.

It throws it too far and it's way far down the way.

So he had some, it might have been effectively wild, he had some really

good pitches and in the midst of some bad pitches, but three scoreless when

you needed, and you saw his emotion at the end of the game, which, you

know, is, that's not something I, I, I've seen outta Ethan all year.

So it was awesome to see him hype in a big moment.

Yeah, that whole

fellas right there on the screen.

Look at us.

Yeah, I, I forgot that I can add the comments to the screen, so Sure.

If, if you're watching us on any of the social media platforms, feel free to

drop us a question, topic to chat about.

We just kind of wanted to hang out, and the reason we're having

to do this on a Sunday is solely because of my dumb work travel.

Uh, I have to fly tomorrow.

We normally be recording.

We've got a, a midweek game for now on Tuesday.

Uh, so no real chance to, to record this any other way, but we wanted

to try it live, see what happened.

Um, yeah, it's, I. Just hold on, hold on.

Another, another two innings here.

We'll be in good shape.

Yeah, we're, we're in it.

Well we got, uh, runners first and second no outs.

We got Jorge who's had a, had a nice week up.

Uh, you know, he is, Jorge has had a great season.

I mean, he is, the strikeout total is high.

I know that's been, you know, some of the people love to complain all the time.

That's been a complaint.

It was easy, easy, easy one to target.

Uh, 'cause he is got, you know, almost probably 60 strikeouts, but he's, he's

been a, um, he's been a very good place.

He is pretty much seconded.

Like every stat, you know, he's, he's just good and, and put him

in center field has been huge.

'cause he's, he's definitely our best fielder.

He covers a ton of ground in center field and looking at him, you

wouldn't think he's a super fast guy, but he can move in that outfield.

He gets a good read, good jump, and um, definitely on the all mustache team.

Yeah.

Yes.

We got a few of those that that was a No, I noticed Alex was, he

had mentioned the other day when we talked to him, he, he had the, uh,

the rally fingers kind of going.

Oh yeah.

Oh.

And they have like the perfect camera angle there.

They were just zoomed in.

You could see his whole face.

Right.

It was great.

And, uh, you know, he, he pitched well.

Uh, we're just getting a lot of guys in the bullpen stepping up in the big wave

business ball.

Ah, dang it.

Dang.

Yeah.

Doubled off.

Uh, so little looping ball the shortstop caught and got right

back to second base for now.

We got so double play.

So now run our first two outs.

That's, that's my fault for saying that.

Teron was getting a boost from being on the podcast last week.

He immediately gets Well, you know,

I don't, that's not even his fault.

The guy I don't think he can much, you can do, I mean, you look where his ball

hit hits and he's just out his lead.

Yeah.

Right there.

They showed the replay.

There's nothing you can do that's Yeah.

You gotta freeze on a line drive.

Yeah, he

did.

Yeah.

Nothing.

He's out by four or five feet.

Yeah.

So,

nice guy.

Keep it going.

Yes.

I I was a little surprised to Kellen Davis come into the game today.

'cause I know he's pitched a good already this weekend, but he,

you know, give the one sack fly.

They got the, the inherited runner in, but other than that,

he was looking pretty good.

His stuff has gotten so filthy.

Like it.

Yeah.

I encourage anyone, uh, imagine Kellen be around next year, go stand behind

home plate while he's pitching and you figure out what that pitch is.

'cause no one else seems to be able to.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and now we, I know we talked about it, Kellen's

such a great example of a kid that just showed up and worked.

I mean, he came in, he was, um, I, I don't think he had a scholarship.

I think it was like the, the preferred walk-on.

Um, and he, he red shirt.

And I know that first year it was kinda like, is this kid

ever gonna get the pitch for us?

Is this, you know, is there any future for him here?

And he just kept working and working and working into where, you know, now he's,

uh, uh, the last two years, one of the most important pieces of the bullpen.

And he's a huge, uh, bench guy.

Like he's, he's always right there cheering and he's, he is leading the

nonsense, uh, as I like to say, which is what you need as a, as a bench.

Um, and he, he's great for it.

So it's, yeah, Kellen's just like, I mean, that's just a, a

success story of college baseball.

It's what you wanna see those guys that come in and you work your way from really

not getting a chance to being a dude.

He also might be the most in shape person I've ever seen in my life.

If he, if he's got a body percentage, like a body fat percentage is under one,

it's, it's probably negative.

He probably gives fat away.

He is, yeah.

He was one his first year when he wasn't playing.

His, his role was to go down and get the foul balls and he would always

run back down the line and just do like a standing jump over the, like

three foot brick wall that, you know, I would have to like climb over slowly

to make sure I didn't break something.

Uh, well, Alec, we're not allowed to live stream the game.

I wish we could.

No.

So, uh, if anyone asks No, we're, we're definitely not doing that or play

by play or anything of that nature.

I don't want the mouse showing up at my house.

Yeah.

Here.

Yeah.

Don't get me legally.

Uh, although I would, it would be, I guess technically the

Avengers would be suing me.

Isn't that how that would, what we would call that?

I wouldn't mind that on my record.

And,

and Luke Skywalker,

those one sued by the Avengers, Luke Skywalker.

Yeah.

Had that frat, they're showing the frat alley out there in the left

field, and there's no frat today.

And the frat boys must be, uh, they're all at church on Sunday?

Probably, I guess.

Yeah, there's a, there's a puffer sitting out there though, so at least

we're getting to see some of that.

They've had pretty good crowds, I think up there in Harrison.

They got very nice.

Yeah.

I, I have not been up there.

My, my parents went to a game, uh, when they were playing the VA in

the Valley League, um, the Turks.

And, uh, they sort, you know, it's a nice place and you could tell it looks nice.

And I know the guys mentioned a few times that it, they built it up in 2010.

So it's, it's a good, I mean, JMU has good stuff, man.

You know, it's, it's, uh, I'm glad we're beating them.

It's, you know, between, uh, I know, I think we've mentioned what

we said, football and basketball haven't beaten them since we've

gotten back in the Sunbelt.

Nope, sure haven't.

Nope, sure haven't.

So, you know, it, it's this rivalry that's in the big money sports, not a rivalry,

but clearly here it is, you know, I mean, at least, well, I know the other way.

Maybe it's not because, uh, ODU baseball keeps whipping up on 'em and

then the tennis seems to dominate 'em.

So maybe it's, it's a rivalry in the overall sense because like what we

say, they'd be both be 11, 11 in the, um, row rivalry after this, if we win.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, uh, ODS 10 and Jamie u has 11 right now, so I guess

it would technically be a tie.

I have no idea if they're tiebreakers.

Uh, and I'll say for clarity, I didn't care when we lost that thing.

I won't care if we tie it.

And I also won't care if we, like, I just, I can't get into the force there.

There's already enough of rivalry there.

We don't need like a Yeah.

Fake, fake thing attached to it.

It's the, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's cool to say, I guess to say you won the

raw rivalry, but, you know, it's, I, I think at the end of the day, again,

if you're not winning in the big money sports, then it's like, okay, cool.

I mean, JMU can always say, well, yeah, but you can't beat

us in football or basketball.

It's like, all right, that's fair.

It's always the excuse that Virginia gives when tech dunks on 'em for football.

They're like, well, we've got swimming national titles.

It's like, yeah, you do, and that's awesome.

You should be, should be proud of that.

But

yeah,

you know, I, we, we gotta do, do a little bit better, in my

opinion, on, on those games.

Well that's, you know, that's how it goes.

Uh, it's not easy.

It is, it is fascinating.

Like, why.

JMU is so much better than us in the basketball and football there,

there's no real good reason for it.

Um,

' cause they, I mean, they've had coaching changes.

They've reloaded Yeah.

They've done all those things like, you know, last year for football,

there was no excuse for us not to win that game, but we just didn't

really show up in the second half.

And I don't, I don't wanna relive that.

Oof.

No, I have enjoyed the, and you mentioned, uh, yesterday the announcers in these

games have been really, really good.

The guy's done a great job and, and mentioning the, all the connections

between the ODU, uh, and JMU coaches, you know, the, uh, Marlon Eikenberry,

uh, played for, for Finwood and then you coached with them and, you

know, they have all the, all the, you know, Auburn coaching and, and

then bringing in, uh, Jack Slater's dad, Tom and his VMI and Auburn

coaching is, it's, it's always neat.

Those kind of interweaved webs.

I've learned more about VMI baseball in the last three days

than I ever thought I would know.

It's been cool to hear the connections.

Yeah.

I also didn't know that VMI leads the country in stolen bases.

Yes.

Oh, they're, and that was, I, I think I told you they played up

there at War Memorial and, uh, went to the game and when I left, they

were playing, um, William Mary.

I'm about to sneeze.

Uh, when they were playing William and Mary, they were losing nine to one.

Oh.

I left in the middle of seventh.

They ended up winning the game.

12 to nine.

VMI did on a walk off home run.

And because I remember during the game I was like, you know,

we're driving over there.

I was bringing my parents and my mom's reading off all these stats

that like, you know, they're, they're VM i's offense is like a top 10 in

the country and all kinds of things.

You know, they're pitching obviously is, has left them down.

That's why they, they kind of have a sub 500 record.

But I, during the game I'm thinking like, where is this?

Like, you know, a few of the guys had hits, you know, but it's

like, where is all this offense?

And then, well, there it is.

It showed up eventually.

Yeah.

They're, uh, they're, you know, and, and that was how it was when had, was there.

I mean they've been, they're a very good offensive team.

And, and if you've been to VMI, you know, the ballpark has got a, it's, it's got a

short porch and it's, but that doesn't, that doesn't help you steal bases.

No, it was just kind of wild.

Just think, you know, you've gotta get enough guys on base to have the

steel opportunities to begin with.

So they must be, be pretty good on the offensive side.

Yeah, their kid, uh, Grayson Fitzwater from uh, NS River.

He's a junior.

He said he already broke the school home run record.

He plays with pilots in the summer and he's a really, I was talking to

Hera, he said he was like the last guy he recruited right before he left.

He said he never got that, have him there.

I was like, that's a bummer.

Yeah.

Pilots are gonna have some studs.

'cause we know Scotty is gonna be over there this summer.

Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a couple other ODU guys that get over that way.

Yeah.

Um,

well, Fitzwater will be back.

They have a few of the guys they've had, um, we saw Henry Garcia with um, ULM.

He'll be back with them again and got Chris Martinez, who's like,

he's like 27 years old I think now from Dominican Republic.

He had a weird, so he was, he was, um, oh, here's a little chopper.

This is gonna be trouble.

Oh, oh peasy.

Did he get him?

Oh my God.

That's one of the best plays all season.

Wow.

Wow.

High chopper.

That was so, yeah.

Ooh.

Back to LP pio, bare hands and Fires in one motion.

It looks like had to go half

step to go way to his right to get it, which is not easy if you

think about he's right-handed.

So he is, he, if anything, he's falling off toward the first base side, had to

run back over to the third base side, bare hand it and then May, and the throw

was high, but it was, it was dead on.

I mean, what a play by sio.

So that's, I mean, awesome.

Is that too scoreless for him now in this game?

It is.

Talk about a guy bouncing the back in a big way.

I mean, he struggled early this season.

Yeah, it, it did not look good for him.

But the last, I think three outings for LP pio, he has looked like his old self.

'cause he has filthy stuff he can locate.

He's a great pitcher.

Just sometimes you get the yips, I think.

And yeah.

Well he was, remember,

remember first part of the year, fin was telling us he was gonna be his closer.

And then, you know, he very quickly got to be, I remember one point a few weeks

ago thinking like, I don't know if Nick's ever gonna throw another pitch for us.

And I mean, and again, Nick's an awesome kid.

I love the guy.

It's not like I'm sitting here, you know?

Oh man.

You know, it's like, it's just the reality of how things were going and,

and, but that's, it's been great to see.

And this game he's throwing.

Well, that's, that's awesome, man.

And that would be, it'd be huge.

Some of these guys that are all of a sudden, you know, going back and,

and playing, like, we kind of were hoping they were gonna play all year.

Uh, we're, we're really rolling in a good spot, uh, right now.

And sio, if he comes back in for the ninth, would be in line for, I

believe his first save of the year.

So he would get a closer roll in one of the last games of the season.

But I think that's, yeah, I mean, that's great.

You get some of these arms, some confidence going into coastal, then

obviously the Sunbelt tournament is, you're gonna need 'em.

Those innings are endless in the Sunbelt tournament.

And yeah, if you want to survive in advance, you've gotta have

guys you wouldn't expect or that.

You've underperformed for part of the year, step up in a big way and

give you a couple of good innings.

Uh, we're seeing that right here this weekend.

Uh, especially going 12 on Friday.

We burned through, I mean, that's three more innings on your bullpen right there.

They end up doing six in that, six innings in that game.

Uh, they, they did pretty well.

Dylan did pretty well yesterday, I think.

Well, you made to about the seventh when he, when he came out.

He had

seventh.

He got through seventh

and he had six scoreless before that seventh inning.

He had a great, another great outing for Dylan Brown.

Uh, but you know, bullpen had scramble a little bit, some changes

as that game got tighter later.

Uh, so love, love seeing these bullpen guys step up, but I'd be much happier

with about five more runs here.

Yeah, it'd be nice.

I mean, Luke could start it off here.

Keep that, uh, excellent weekend going.

And he put two over the fence yesterday in almost the exact same spot, like

just consistency in that swing.

Yeah, he is been killing that ball to the, uh, the, the left side.

Yeah.

That left center gap has been his friend.

Not in this situation, but

Little Chopper there.

Yeah.

Who we're seeing, we're seeing pictures of somebody with JMU football.

I'm not sure.

I'm not able to listen right now, so

I can't hear it.

I'm trying to do some math on 1989.

I

don't

know.

Is that, is no way.

That's Roger, right?

It's gotta be somebody else.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I thought he was like a linebacker.

If, if anybody watching the live stream has the audio up and knows

who they were showing there, number 15 for JMU on the 89 team.

Shoot us a message here so we know Roger.

Oh, I got live feedback.

That was Roger Waters in those pictures.

That

was Roger.

There we go.

See there My boots support

in the living room.

Just let me know.

I

was gonna say it is the real star of the show.

Yes, absolutely.

All right.

I've got a funny situation because we dealt with a light problem

Wednesday in Richmond at VCU.

Yeah.

OD won the game.

It was pretty comfortable, but the light tower in right field, there's

four light towers in the outfield.

That one was out.

Uh, they couldn't figure out how to get it back on.

They even turned all the outfield lights off and back on.

It still didn't come up.

And you could just kind of see both teams in the midweek that

not that important to 'em anymore.

They called it Game Over.

Old Dominion wins.

Well, on Monday out at Washington University, they were hosting an NIA

Division two School, Warner Pacific.

Uh, the game started during the day, uh, seventh inning and Warner

Pacific is leading Washington five to four and Warner Pacific.

So they're like 1133 this year.

They're not very good even for I think a D two NAIA and uh, all of a sudden

the lights wouldn't work at Husky Park.

They, they couldn't get the lights on.

They had to call it, and instead of.

Being a completed game or, you know, anything like that.

No contest was the official ruling on the game.

No contest.

So no loss for Washington to A-N-A-I-A Division two.

It reminded me of Major League three back to the minors.

When the minor league team comes up to play.

I think it's the Twins and Metrodome.

Oh yeah.

They turn the lights off on purpose and the manager calls and gets the

lights turned off so they don't take the loss that it had those vibes to it.

And that, uh, that happened

on Monday.

This will be the only, uh, major League three reference

you'll ever hear in your life.

It was, oh no, Walton Goggins is in that man.

Oh man.

Is Walton Kins in that?

Yes, he's downtown.

Dang.

Is he?

I gotta Oh, he is.

He's the kid.

Ah, man.

I've been re I've been watching Vice Principals, which I'd

never really watched before.

Yes.

Uh, and he is, he's something else, man.

Oh, he's awesome.

I, I think I discovered him watching The Shield way back in the day.

This is, yeah.

Oh 4 0 5 on FX something.

I

saw something the other day.

It said that, uh, Jude Law's been trying to make the, um, the receding hairline,

you know, attractive for 20 years.

Walton said Walton Goggins comes in with his big teeth and just makes it happen.

I mean, he is, he is.

Got it figured out.

He hosted Saturday Night Live last night.

He's in Righteous White boys.

Yeah.

Righteous gemstones.

Uncle Baby Billy is one of the best characters you'll ever see in your life.

Yes.

Yes, he is.

He is one of the best.

All right, well, we're headed to the bottom of the ninth here, still.

Four, two is bottom.

A fairly quick inning.

Go.

All right, I like it.

So, in true Dominion baseball fashion, this is gonna be a

sweaty, tight game because why not?

Like we, we can't just have this com We had the comfy game,

I guess Wednesday enrichment.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I don't mind us winning.

I, I like winning these games where we're ahead and have to maintain a lead.

You know, that's important.

'cause we weren't doing that the first part of the year.

We were, we'd get ahead and we weren't maintaining leads.

So if we can get wins that way, it says, it shows, we've made some,

made some growth and made some, you know, realize like, okay, this is

how you have to win a ball game.

Yeah.

And I feel like it's just the more natural way that yeah, like, you know,

you utilize your bullpen in the right way to hold the lead so you know what

you've gotta do and not just depending on the offense to bail you out each time.

Yeah.

And come from behind and win or whatever.

And yeah.

It's not, it's, it's much better to, like I said, it feels,

it feels like a baseball win.

Like, okay, we, we held lead, we kept it All right, peasy.

Let's go kid.

Pretty sure I see Craig Brown up there in the background of the broadcast right now.

Love bet.

All right.

We do have a final finally from Atlanta.

Marshall beat Georgia State, 11 to 10 Marshall's kinda warmed up now.

Think it's a 13th conference, win

all.

Well, honestly, don't get as many as we have.

That's fine.

No, I think they're, I think they're in, if we win today, I

don't know if they can catch us, but

find out.

I mean, even

they do we, we got the tiebreaker, so yes.

That is one nice thing.

Yeah.

You beat some of the teams you need to beat and.

Uh, especially with Georgia Southern, uh, doing us a favor actually by

beating Texas State yesterday in the third game of their series.

That was helpful.

Uh, app State up 11 to two on South Alabama in the ninth.

So it looks like app state's very, very long.

Losing streak is finally gonna come to an end.

I cannot believe that going into today they had lost 11 straight games.

Crazy.

That's a lot of games to lose in a row.

Yeah.

And they had, they had such a home field advantage through most of that

early part of the season like that.

Yeah.

They were just not losing games at home.

They obviously took two outta three against us.

They were in Boone.

Um, wild to see them.

I tell you, talking to other teams, man, the Coastal's pretty darn good.

I'm looking at some of their stats.

I mean, and you saw, I dunno if you saw, they, they played a complete game on

Friday against ULM then one in seven, I'm sorry, on Thursday, then one in seven

on Friday, then won in five yesterday.

They only had the, only had the pitch.

What, uh, was that 31 innings?

Uh, maybe their arms will be, uh, 21 innings.

Yeah.

Over rested maybe.

Yeah.

Uhhuh, I'm sure they're over rested.

Yeah.

I I would, I think you can make the argument they might have the best

weekend starting rotation in the country.

Their, their stats hitting in, in pitching are disgusting.

Um, it's, it's pretty gross how good coastal is.

Um, you know, they're definitely the kind of team that once you get past the

tournament, you know, and it becomes like, Hey, let's root for everyone.

Like we're gonna all be big coastal fans.

'cause they, they have a shot of doing big things nationally this year.

I mean, they're getting pretty high up there in the odds to

win the College World Series.

Um, I

know I, I saw a team, I saw something yesterday.

I had to pick them to go the, the, the Omaha.

Yeah.

I mean at, at this rate, unless we sweep 'em or something.

Um, I imagine that they're gonna, yeah, I hope be a national seed.

I hope so.

I'd love to mess up their whole year.

Make 'em feel bad.

That'd be nice.

Ruin it.

Yeah.

All right.

Jamie's got a runner on no Outs and our good friend Jackson Tone at the plate.

Jake, good old Jake.

Yeah.

Jake's having a tough year.

Jake's uh, you know, Jake's a a great hitter.

He just never really happened here at ODU U and, and unfortunately looks

like it's not really happening that, uh, at JMU either he had like about

a week where he was getting to play some games and yeah, here's a ground

out into a, it was a double play.

Yeah, so that's a, he's a, he's a great kid, great family.

His, his, uh, he had a younger brother that was a senior last year, and

he is got another younger brother.

He's a junior at Western Branch, so he is still the, the, the tone family

is still going at Western Branch, but, uh, it's just unfortunate he, he's,

uh, too good of a ball player and the results just haven't been there.

You know, maybe I'm just way off base, but I've watched all three of J MU's games.

I've watched a few of their games this season.

I know that they have improved as the season has gone on.

But just watching 'em, you know, even though we're one out away from a

sweep here, I don't feel like they're this bottom feeder Sunbelt team.

I feel like they should have more wins than they do.

That's every single Sunbelt series you play.

It is like, these guys aren't bad.

Why are they, why are they losing?

I'm sure that's how every team has felt when they play ODU and they're seeing

us being like 17 and 26 at one point.

It's like, man, these guys aren't bad.

What's happening?

It's, yeah, I don't, it's conference play is just different, man.

It doesn't matter what your record is.

You show up and the teams look good and they play hard.

It's wild to think we are ahead of where we were this time last year, after

all we've been through this season.

Yeah.

I mean, we're, we're not used to seeing that, um, that record be

upside down like that, the 20 and 26, but that 14 and 12 and, and when

we're out 15 and 12 is pretty great.

Yeah.

And you start thinking back like, all right, well the three

against Auburn, we got one there.

We got one at Southern Miss.

And you think about the games we may have.

Thrown away a little bit or had the chance to win.

Oh, there's, there's

might be 10 games you could find where it's like, man, if something,

if we just did a couple things right, we, we'd win this game and we, all

of a sudden, and then we'd have, you know, we, we'd probably be in the

top 40 in RPI and be talking about getting the, uh, oh, here we go.

Nice little ground out the third, and that's, it's your brooms first, first

sweep of the season for ODU Baseball.

Fantastic.

The series we need to sweep more than any other

Yeah.

Has happened.

We got the stanky leg.

Who's the new celebration they're doing?

I don't know what that, you know, they just do stuff.

They're just weirdos that just decide to do stuff.

We need to get a stop watch on Kainen Jorge for how quickly he's got that shirt

untucked because I mean, he, he hasn't hit infield dirt before that thing is out.

No, every day.

That was the game last Sunday where they had the replay.

They were having to tell him to tuck it back in and he was so annoyed.

Yeah.

Uh, how about Nick Sulpizio, three scoreless innings to get the save and

close out a four two win for Old Dominion?

Yeah.

How about that?

A guy who's struggled all year.

Let's see, I'm up, I'm pulling him up now to just to look at his recent games.

'cause he, he also went a long time without pitching.

Yes.

So that was another reason where it was like, is he ever gonna pitch again?

'cause it's like he just hasn't gotten in a game.

I mean, he was, uh, his, some of his biggest contributions

were the, the bat boy.

Yeah.

Uh, the

ball boy.

Um, yeah.

Let's see.

So Marshall had two, scoreless had a scoreless heading at Virginia.

Yeah.

He pitched at Marshall.

It was five two.

So the 2nd of May.

The last time he pitched before that was the 1st of April in Virginia.

So he went a month without pitching.

Oof.

And now he is got actually three games in a row with, uh, six quarter innings.

But they were also, one of those games was a month earlier.

Um,

well,

and bef and before that he had given up, uh, eight or runs and

one inning between two games.

So it's, uh, it's been a tough year for him, but I mean, man, if he all of a

sudden, you know, maybe he just needed to rest, you know, you never know.

Maybe, maybe he was a little bit injured and he just needed to rest and now it

feels better and he is back on track.

Maybe they went back and did some mechanical adjustments.

You, you never know what's going on with these guys.

Yeah.

I mean, it could have been a little pain in the shoulder, a little sprain,

a little tweak, something could have been a lot of stuff, but mm-hmm.

Uh, nothing seemed to be bothering him today.

Uh, getting three innings on the back end to slam the door.

We needed to sweep and we gotta sweep.

We are gonna at worse finish, 500 in the sunbelt, which

should put us in the top six.

Yeah.

Which is exactly where you wanna be.

And a few weeks ago, it didn't seem possible.

It seemed unlikely.

We, there was a solid chance we wouldn't end up in the top 10.

And here we are like, no, pretty much gonna be in the top six.

I mean, that's, that's crazy.

Yeah.

We're gonna have to get swept and have some very, very funky things to create

a tie for us to not be in the top six.

Now, if we go and get one game from Coastal, we are in the top six period.

Yeah.

And uh, I was actually having a conversation with Beau Cowen

yesterday about the seating and the playing times and all of that.

Uh, and, and it's interesting, like it.

Being the six seat, I'm pretty sure you played 9:00 AM on Wednesday,

and then you would always have more rest for your next game.

So if we do end up getting bumped down to six, it's not the worst thing.

Also, when you consider how hot it's going to be in Alabama next in two weeks,

um, playing, you know, before it hits 90 degrees is probably helpful for us.

So yeah,

you say that, but these guys do not like playing at nine in the morning.

One of those No, I mean, I wouldn't either.

Yeah, it sounds sounds okay in theory until you're like, tell them yeah, you

gotta be there at nine in the morning.

They're like, oh,

the only, the only advantage we have is we play a central time team will at least

be one hour closer to being a human being.

So,

Hm.

Yes.

So ODU gets the four two win, completes the sweep about a picture perfect

weekend as you can get for ODU in terms of the baseball standings.

I mean, we got help and we helped ourselves.

Yeah.

I mean, and that's, and again, we, as we just were saying, it's not

what we've been doing all year.

We have not been helping ourselves.

We've been shooting ourselves in the foot most of the season.

Um, and so to come out when you needed to have it happen and, and

do the right stuff, it is huge.

It, it really is.

Yeah.

Really important.

And just playing at the right time in baseball in general, I

think everyone knows that you want to get hot later in the year.

You don't wanna Yeah.

You know, be like app state who, they're world beaters earlier and now they're,

they're scratching and claw to just get out of the tough losing streak,

uh, which is really, really tough.

Yeah, I was saying the other day, and, and Coastal was actually a team

I mentioned, you know, if you remember when they won the, the College World

series, which was, I, that was what, 15 or 16, you know, that was, it

wasn't that they were the best team.

They really weren't, they were not the most talented at all.

I mean, you look back, most of those guys, I think one or two of 'em played

pro ball and didn't get very far.

What it was is they were hot.

They were, they were a good veteran team and they got hot at the right time.

And that's, that's what it takes in the postseason, you know, not

just the conference play, but then in the NCAA tournament is

just being hot at the right time.

All right.

I'm pulling up some stats here 'cause Sure we do have an outside

shot to get the four seat.

It's not like, yeah, the odds aren't great.

No,

we do,

but the odds get a little bit better.

Yeah.

We're 15 and 12 and did, what'd Louisiana do today?

Do we know

they are down nine to six right now in the top of the seventh.

Okay.

Southern Middle.

I mean, uh, going for their sweep of the Cajuns, which I'm sure they would love.

There's been a lot of good back and forth on social media between we would both

be 15 and 12 then, you know that then you're, you're talking about it, right?

Yeah.

You, you've got a shot now.

Um, they are going to play Arkansas State in their final series, which is, uh,

yeah.

The opposite of what we're doing.

Yeah, exactly.

So I mean, we're, we would probably need to start the conversation with

winning the series against Coastal, which, uh, I mean, that's, that's

been tough for everybody this year.

Um, but you know,

if the, the only way, you know, that's one of those things where if you want to

go into the tournament and do some stuff, you'd have to beat somebody like Coastal.

So could you, could you imagine the, the level of confidence you would

have walking into that tournament coming off a, a, a What, what?

I mean, how many, how many series in a row have we won now?

Where's our, where's our schedule?

Let me look here.

That's at least three, right?

I believe so, yeah.

Three in a row.

We had a, yeah, I mean that's ULM, Marshall and now JMU,

so we've won three in a row.

And the one being the sweep is really the, the key difference here.

Yeah.

We lost a series to occasions, so that's, I'm trying to think

how many series we played.

Nine series, how many we won, we won against George, so we

won four of the last five.

Yep.

Five and four of, we lost Troy.

5, 4, 5 and four in series.

Okay.

I mean, that's, mm-hmm.

You know, you win at least as many as you Yeah.

Finney's been kind of saying it all year.

If you.

End up 500, you'll be there.

So, you know, we're I, I said a, a a month ago, it was like, are these

guys even gonna get in the top 10 and have a chance to even play?

So this is, we, we've, you know, they have you, you gotta hand it to the guys.

They have come up and they have played exactly how you needed them to play.

Um,

yeah, they've, every, everything put forward is like, all right, if

we want a chance, we gotta do this.

And then they go and do it, and it's like, all right, well,

chance is a little bit better.

And, and we've gone on from there.

Uh, it looks like this loss for JMU is gonna eliminate them from contention

to make the Sunbelt tournament.

So,

yeah, I think they, they were saying they needed to win like the last four in a row.

Yeah, they threw everything they had at us.

I mean, they, they went to their Sunday starter, who

still started today on Friday.

I think he threw 139 pitches this weekend and was very effective for 'em.

Um, I mean, they, they emptied the tank.

They did what they could.

Uh, they've got one more series at Texas State than their season will be over.

And that was the last athletic event at JMU for the academic calendar.

So think it's weird that happens, that we get down to that.

Uh, you wanna kind of go back through the week and talk about the games?

I definitely wanna talk about, uh, getting going four Oh.

Against rivals this week.

Starting with Yeah, we did have a four

Oh rivalry week.

Dang.

Okay.

When you put it that way.

Wow.

Gotta gotta take the rivalry win so we can get 'em this.

Dang.

Alright.

Um, yeah.

Uh, diamond on Wednesday.

Feels like it was like two weeks ago now,

it feels like a hundred years ago.

It does feel like a lot of life has happened between today and Wednesday

and that game felt like in old school ODU game, like what

you expect from ODU baseball.

Yeah.

Hitting home runs, pitching well.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, you would talk about the bullpen doing well they, they didn't

give up a run after the first inning.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Connor Schumann, uh, and he still, I still thought he pitched well.

I forgot to get with the runs of the first inning, but he, I

still thought he pitched well.

Uh, he got one in two thirds, and then after that, Frankie Wright

and a third Bailey came in.

Alex, uh, hunt came in, uh, sup, who's another guy that's

on a nice little stretch.

And, and Marco, uh, didn't get a chance to do anything.

He, he, he walked the guy and he actually was not looking great, but

then the lights went out on him.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

We had, uh, we did have the, ended up being, I guess technically

six innings of, of pitching,

and the only two runs that Schumann gave up, he threw a pitch in on the hands,

it hit right above the batter's, hands on the handle, and just dribbled up

through the middle, allowing runners from second and third to score with two outs.

So it wasn't like he gave up a big gap shot or anything like that, just

kind of, kind of got one through.

Um, but we just played a complete game.

Uh, I mean, the light going out was a funky thing.

Uh, as I found out from Eric Bohannan.

I. Uh, everything up to the point of where the game was

suspended counts in the stat book.

Mm-hmm.

It would've only changed.

It would only reverted if we had taken the lead in the top half, which we

didn't already comfortably had the lead, but that was, I think the first

time that I have seen the game at the college level, especially division

one called For the Lights Being Out.

I,

I saw, if you remember Jared Hancock that played for us for, for three,

four years, I saw a high school game he played where they didn't have lights and

the game went to like the 13th inning and they just had to stop playing,

um, and then pick it up, pick it up the next day, and then the next day

apparently played like five more innings.

Uh, but, so that's about the only way I can think of.

But yeah, I've not seen a college game that that had to stop.

And, and I, I think.

I think we, we pointed out if it was a conference game and on the weekend they

might have kept playing or they might have figured it out, but because it was a

midweek and it was like, all right, we're already losing whatever, just call it,

at this point in the year, everyone is looking to cancel their midweeks.

If somebody over waters their lawn next door to the stadium, they

are gonna call that game and save their arms for the weekend or the

tournament, whatever it may be.

Well,

yeah, they've got, they got rain, uh, scheduled on, uh,

Tuesday in, in, uh, in Richmond.

So I, I wouldn't be surprised if we're, and Richmond, you know, they're

trying to win their conference too.

They're, they're pretty good this year, so my guess is neither one

of the teams are gonna be too upset about that one not happening.

Grant Gardner, that's what he's a he is a, a a, um, the Green Lantern.

Isn't that one of the, the green lanterns is Grant Gardner.

That's pretty cool.

No,

that, that, I don't know.

I think Grant and I have been following each other on social

media since I'm pretty sure we were both in school, which I don't wanna

admit now how long ago that was.

Uh, appreciate you tuning in Grant Sky Gardner.

I'm sorry.

My

bad.

I'm sorry.

Grant.

I just can't believe, uh, you know, you remember the name of

the Green Lantern person, but

you, you, you, you know me, you know better stuff.

Uh, I mean,

yeah, you throwing the breaker.

Well, we were winning, so I didn't, I didn't need any reason to go

try and, uh, and take that thing.

Uh, it is interesting and kind of ominous with the new baseball

stadium going in right next door.

You see it as you walk through the parking lot on that, uh, third base side.

You've got that going on.

You've got lights that aren't working and I, I don't know, I heard a pop before the

light went out, so I'm guessing tripped.

Um, but I also didn't know if it was one of our guys getting a

little too loose in the bullpen down there and they hit the pad.

So I didn't really wanna broadcast that and get, then

get dunked on for a while pitch.

Um, yeah, it's the new stadium.

There's gonna be nice, I, I don't know what V C's whole arrangement

and setup and contract's gonna be.

Um, I would assume that at some point they're gonna play in the new stadium, but

I also know that the diamond itself will still be up there this time next year.

Mm-hmm.

But they've already got enough effort to just try to get that thing

rolling with the field conditions.

I mean, that's playing service is rough.

Yeah.

It was neat going up there.

'cause you know, I, I've been the diamond a ton of times.

I used to go all the time, um, when, uh, when they were the Richmond Braves

and so it's, it's always a lot of fun.

So, yeah.

What's faster is, uh, it's caans shirt untucked because my, my curtain sometimes

will wait halfway through the thing You notice today I'm, I'm in the living room.

I've, I've also, I've got, she's over here sleeping, but I got a brand new kitten

yesterday, so I'm kind of in the room.

I don't want her in the other room where all the, my, my

good, my good stuff is, but.

She's, she's on the couch here, so you'll notice I'm in a different room.

Well see.

Adding a cat is gonna change the bedding odds here.

A little bit of your curtain falling because you've introduced

something that can also tear down a

curtain,

so we might get the full, she's not allowed,

she is not allowed in that room.

You may actually see me out here in general because she, I mean, maybe

it'll change, but she now, she, she meows like crazy if she can't see me.

So, uh, I, I don't think we get through a podcast with the door closed and Yeah.

Me, yeah, me, me

from the other side of the door.

You gonna

see it on the transcript?

Cat noises in

background.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Yeah.

Uh, but no.

Yeah, so the diamond, so, and, but as you pointed out, it was, it was a great, uh,

you know, Kaan hit a homer, uh, and then, uh, Maverick caught right back up with him

with another big, I mean, just a big bomb.

Um, or there was the absolute way I missed, I can think maybe Maverick

hit his first, but it, they were both just absolute bullets out of there.

Um, and Taron Hammond got back in the lineup.

He had a couple of hits.

Uh, I. Kyle had a couple hits.

I mean, it was Tanner Shadell had another nice hit.

You know, he, again, his numbers are probably never gonna look good no matter

what he does the rest of the year.

But he's had what I think is a good year for a freshman.

It, it's, you know, he hasn't been like, it's not like a Alex Boucher

freshman season where it's like, oh man, this guy's a, a stud.

But it's, it's what a typical freshman season is.

You know, there's a lot of struggles followed by some success.

Yeah.

And we're seeing a lot of those guys that are new to the team,

that are maybe true freshmen not playing like true freshmen anymore.

They're stepping up in a big way.

They've got almost a full season under their belt.

Uh, and especially with as much as we've been on the road, I think

that kind of sharpens you up and matures you a little bit faster.

Uh, 'cause you don't have nearly as much on-campus shenanigans as you would when

you're playing at home all the time.

Yeah.

Um, and then Friday, that's probably the most intense ODU

game in, in a little while, and we've had some intense ones, but.

We go four, four, we're going to extra innings and like

we can't get anything going.

Mm-hmm.

We we're not getting guys on base.

JMU is putting ducks on the pond every inning.

Yeah.

But our bullpen shuts 'em down.

We finally get two guys on Luke rips, one really off the base of the wall

and left center scores, two runs.

We win that.

And I think that that may have taken some of the air out of the sales for JMU

'cause they, they, they shot their best bullets on, on their pitching staff that

night and we were able to get the win.

Yeah.

They don't, they don't have a lot of, of good bullets and they used them.

Yeah.

When you got Max.

Cool.

Who's, you know, uh, as we know Aiden's brother, uh,

Aiden pitched for us last year.

He is one of their best pitchers and he only got five innings.

Um, Todd Maki's been a great reliever for him last few years.

And then he said, bring out that Jackson Lo, who his stats were weird,

as they were saying you, he, he doesn't give up a lot of hits, but he hits

a lot of guys and he did that today.

Hit a few guys.

Uh, very odd that we give up almost no hits, but then you're,

you're still hitting a lot of guys.

Um, but yeah, they, they threw the kitchen sink at us and we threw the

kitchen sink right back at them.

And ours was a little bit bigger or more better marble on the sink.

I don't know how, I don't know how this analogy keeps going.

Better water flow, better disposal.

Yeah.

Either way.

Uh, either way our guys locked it down.

I mean, six scoreless from your bullpen on a Friday night game is key because

it, it almost gets that point too.

If you get, do go and lose that game, if you're ODU uh, y the momentum

swing and what's available to you for Saturday is, is really difficult

beyond Dylan, uh, who on Saturday I thought pitch exceptionally well.

Just gave up some hits, but got outta jams real fast.

Yeah.

And his line ends up not looking that great.

Right.

It's seven, seven innings, three runs.

Uh, but that home run he gave up.

It's like what?

At that point it was whatever.

I mean, we were, we were up.

So big seven.

It ended up being, yeah, it ended up being closer than, I mean, that

being what, a nine to six game?

But, you know, Dylan certainly had the best outing of the week and, and to

go, to go back to Friday, Ben Moore actually ended up with a great outing.

He had six innings, which was only the second time.

He'd gone six all year.

Uh, four runs, but only two earned.

And he only had two walks for a guy who's been, you know, throwing

way too many pitches all year, and he had 82 pitches through six.

So he really probably could have gone more.

But again, sometimes you, you, I'm sure you look at it and

you say, Hey, you know what?

He's had the success.

Let's just kind of get him outta there.

We, we don't wanna, you know, stress it out and go longer and have some something

happen that we don't need to have happen.

So, yeah.

Um, good pitch.

And, and Blake pitched well today.

I mean, what, what did he have?

Five and two thirds and, uh, two runs.

What did he have?

Yeah, that second run was, yeah, two run.

The second run.

Kellen gave it up, but it was still his run.

But yes, I mean, uh, again, uh, the strength of this team

is probably the rotation.

And the rotation showed up this weekend.

Yeah.

And it's nice to be able to rely on that 'cause it's been battle tested all year.

I mean, we've essentially used the same three starters for Friday,

Saturday, Sunday, all year long.

Um.

Bullpen starting to come around like Ezio Alex Hunt.

I, they don't, I didn't see a radar gun at VCU.

We also didn't have a pitch clock 'cause it only would reset to two

minutes instead of 20 seconds.

We didn't

have a lot of stuff at VCU.

Yeah.

They did have enough beer for us, which was a pleasant surprise if you've

been up there the last few seasons.

Uh, but I, I have to imagine based on sight and sound that

Alex Hunt was throwing 95 plus.

Mm-hmm.

He's getting it up there.

I mean that thing was popping in there.

Batters were well off their timing.

So even a guy like that who's proven to be a good bridge guy for

us to come in and with people on base and get outs, that's huge.

'cause we, he may end up with pitching three, four days in a row like he

did, uh, a couple weekends ago.

He,

well, he pitched three games this week.

He pitched on Wednesday, uh, Friday and Saturday.

Yeah.

Didn't get any outs in the Saturday game.

Uh, I think he, what he faced one guy and walked him.

Uh, yeah, that was right there.

Just that he's, you know, and, and they decided, okay, at that point, it, it

clearly, you know, when you bring a guy in for the third game of the week, you,

you know, the stuff's not gonna be there.

And I think they were smart to look at and say, okay, the stuff's not here.

Let's get Frankie and Frankie got the job done.

Yeah.

We don't have the rules in college where you have the three batter

momentum or anything, so you can plug guys in for one batter.

I think JMU did that with one of their lefties, didn't pay off for,

and brought in the lefty to face Zach late and Zach rips one down the line

on Saturday, which kind of helped blow the thing open a little bit.

Um, but no, I, I, I love Dylan going back out there for the seventh.

On Saturday, you're up seven, nothing.

You just played a 12 inning game.

He's been pitching really well.

Got a couple bad sequence of pitches there, ends up giving

up a three run home run.

But that was it.

It limited the damage, finished the inning, and we were all good.

Uh, it just, it's kind of exciting to see these guys

turning it on at the right time.

It's, you know, I said yesterday, it's, it's when I tell people all year, it's

like, Hey, if they play how they can play.

They'll be really great.

And that's what I feel like the last couple weeks is what we're seeing is

like what I, it's the team in my head that I'm telling people about all year.

It's like, you know, this is when they play and up to their

ability, they're really, really good and now you're seeing it.

So it's, it's nice for them to finally make me look like I'm not a crazy person.

Just saying like, oh, they're really good.

Try.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah, they're, they're like 12 and 38.

Yeah.

Trust me.

They're really good.

And they've taken the pressure off themselves too, because they go into

the series with Coastal, where they can still be very well positioned,

even if they lose the series.

Even honestly, if they get swept, they're still in a pretty decent spot,

although we really need to take one game.

Whereas if we were in a different situation, maybe lost one to

JMU, now you're talking about having to take two outta three.

From one of the best teams in the country against arguably the best

pitching staff in the country.

You, you lose Friday and the, those, that balloon just deflates real fast.

But in this situation, we get to be kind of the scrappy ones with nothing to lose.

'cause we just need to steal a game from these guys.

And we're, we're locked in for five or six.

So maybe, and this

isn't a team that hasn't played top 25 teams.

We played top 25 teams and we, we, we took a win off.

We beat top 25.

We, we took, yeah, we've taken, we've taken wins at big places.

We played close games another way.

We, we really haven't gotten blown out by those tough teams.

And so, uh, it's not something they're unable to do.

You know, they know it's, it's not gonna be like, oh man,

we've never beaten a team.

This like, no, we have, we absolutely have.

And it's not a, it's not a, you know, okay, cool.

Yeah.

Coastal, whatever.

Like, it's not gonna be like this, you know, big amazing, hard thing

If we can take one from Southern miss on the road with that

kind of crowd environment.

Yeah.

I think we get Oh, Auburn.

Yeah.

Oh, Auburn.

I mean, good guy State, we can take

on a, on a Saturday night at Auburn after they've just had the, the

number one and number two team in the country playing and with their biggest

rival in basketball that afternoon.

I mean, that whole campus is buzzing and we go out and just say, Hey, yeah,

we know you lost the basketball game.

Here's a little more sadness for you.

Uh, yeah, no, these, these guys can do it.

Man.

They, they've, you know, when Troy came in, they were top 25.

We took, we took one, uh, from them.

You know, it's, you know, wasn't, didn't win the series,

but they, they definitely can.

It's, it's, they're not gonna be, if they lose, it's not 'cause they're

intimidated, that's for sure.

No, they lose just because let's be real coastal.

Looks like they're a really darn good baseball team.

Yeah.

And who knows, maybe Coastal decides to just ease on back this weekend,

start sequencing their pitching.

'cause they've got a two game lead on Southern miss even

if Southern Miss wins today.

So little, little different end of the spectrum there.

But, uh.

Go, go get one next weekend.

We're in great shape.

Yeah.

Um, we have a message out to Coach Finwood.

We know a lot of you all tuning in.

Tune in pretty much exclusively to listen to Coach Finwood.

We're the ones that called this audible, so it's definitely

not on him for not being here.

As you saw, he was literally coaching when we started this.

Uh, we'll see if we can get him to pop on here for a few minutes

from the bus if they have signal going through the mountains.

Um, no idea.

You know, they gotta get their stuff together after we who, who knows?

And if, and if we can't.

It's also my fault for not telling 'em ahead of time either.

I forgot to that I was getting a kitten.

I'm sorry.

I had life things.

I'm sorry.

Uh, this is how it goes.

Yeah, I, uh, did not send that message either, so definitely not just on you.

There.

Wait,

let me see.

Wait, let me, because she's over here sleeping.

Let's see.

Can we see the, there she is.

She's adorable and tiny and sleeping.

There we go.

Oh, you made herself comfortable already.

I see.

There we go.

She loves, that's her little hole right there.

She loves that, that side of the couch already.

That's her spot.

She starts climbing on you here in about five minutes.

Oh, she's, I got

little.

Hacks all over my hand already.

Oh.

Well, one thing I did learn from the broadcast, 'cause again, the ESPN

broadcast, they, ESPN plus broadcast was really good, really knowledgeable.

Yeah, they were good.

They were great.

Uh, coastal Carolina is either first or second in the country

and being hit by a pitch.

Yeah.

And I watched some of their games now and went back and watched a couple of

s ESPN plus they're basically standing on that front line of the Baters box.

Mm-hmm.

So anything that's breaking late, I mean, yeah, they're, they're gonna get on dates.

They're gonna get some free passes and wear 'em

1 36 before today.

I mean, that's a crazy amount hit by pitches.

136 hit by pitches in 52 games.

Something's a little funky there.

Right.

That's, yeah.

I mean, they got what Mitch Walker, Mitchell's got 24 hit by pitches.

They got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 guys with double digit hit by pitches.

Well gimme those seven and Steven Meyer and, uh, we'll never get outta the plate.

Geez.

That is crazy.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, they

got like, like their top home run hitters are like the, they're having

good, you know, 2 85, 2 75, but there's like, then there's five guys

ahead of them hitting higher average.

I mean, they're, they're batting number, they're hitting 2 85

as a team, which is hard to do.

But then they're pitching, they've got a 3 38 ERA as a

team, which is insane in college.

That, that's, I don't care what level you're at.

That's ridiculous.

That's, I mean, they're going down

to, I mean, they've got, there's like, I be like, how many two was era?

A, uh, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 4.

It's about 14 or 15 guys before they have anybody with a four ER.

A.

You said their team ERA is in the threes

3 38.

Yeah.

I think our team, ERA just this weekend in this series against one

of the worst hitting teams in the conference is around 3 30, 3 38.

Yeah.

Um, and they're doing that against everyone in the Sunbelt.

Right?

It's pretty, pretty unbelievable.

But hey, wouldn't be a bad time for them to cool off because they're on, on quite

a little winning streak themselves.

Yeah.

For comparison,

our, our ERA for the season is six 17.

Yeah.

A little different.

And our batting is, uh, before today's day is two 60, which is

actually way above where it was.

I,

well, anything can happen in the tournament and, you know,

you just, you never know.

Just get in that tournament, get away from the playing game and I'll, I'll put us up

against anybody in the one game scenario.

Um, and also I think there's, there's some thought, you think you see it a

little bit like in the SEC tournament sometimes the a CC tournament, the

teams that know they're getting in.

They're not going to go over tax, their pitching staff to try to

secure a conference tournament win.

Uh, they're more likely just gonna go save their arms, rehab 'em up and get

'em ready for the regional And coastal would very, very much be in that bucket.

'cause they're, they're getting in like they're, they're hosting, I

would imagine The only argument is are they a top eight or a top 16 seed?

Yeah.

Southern Miss is getting in.

I, I would find it hard to believe that Troy doesn't get in as in, at large.

Um, and then, you know, they're still Louisiana and ODU that could

potentially go win the conference tournament in addition to that.

Yeah, I think you're right When you say those, those top three should

be going to the tournament and then anybody else has gotta be, well

you better win the, the conference.

Yeah.

And we're definitely in the, we gotta win the conference, but I

think Louisiana is too, just 'cause of the slow start they've had.

Yeah, they've definitely turned a corner similar, almost similar trajectory as us.

I think they hit theirs maybe a week before we did.

So, and that was of course the week we, we played them, but if you think remember

that series, we had the lead going into the ninth inning against them, and we lost

the lead then we lost in the 10th inning.

So it's not like we were, you know, head and shoulders worse than Louisiana.

They run rule us on Sunday.

Uh, but, you know, we could have been a spot where we had already

taken two games at that point.

You know, that was one of the last really bad game.

I mean, that's one I'm curious to go back now that we're kind of talking about.

It was, was that a turning point for us that getting run ruled where it

was like, all right, let, let me, let's see what we've done since then.

Where were we at here?

Uh, that was, we get run ruled on the, the Saturday.

Yep.

And then we go and we win, then we actually lose to ULM and then

we win the next two and then we, we lose win two, two or three.

So that's, what is that?

Uh, I can't do math.

Uh, it's uh, four outta five.

The next four outta five.

And then we win four this weekend.

So we won.

Uh.

Eight of the last nine games.

Yeah.

Uh, if you start a game after that,

yeah.

I mean, really.

So even say eight, we went eight outta 10 since we we got that run rule game.

The other difference there is one that was Easter weekend, I believe.

So they, they didn't play on Sunday, so they got the extra day

arrest and their travel drastically reduced for the rest of the season.

Pretty much after ULM, so they've been having much shorter trips.

Uh, we had two weeks there.

We didn't have midweeks, which I think did wonders for our pitching staff to

get them a little bit of a breather.

And when we went back to kind of a more normalized baseball

schedule, we start playing the way we expected the team to play.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

And now there's no school, which is huge.

Now all of a sudden everybody's just relaxed.

Yeah.

Now all the, all the, uh, you know, I mean, it's, it really is.

I mean, you think about this life of student athlete, it's, it

is just a time, it's just, it's all the amount you have to do.

I mean, I remember talking to Jack Spice last year, one of our guys,

and he was like, I don't do anything.

He's like, I see some of these guys go and hang out, get play.

He is like, I go to, I work out and I, and I go to, I do school.

That's it.

He's like, and he is like, that's all I do.

Yeah.

He says that.

Yeah.

He has a girlfriend that hangs us.

I don't know what he's, he's lying to, he's just,

oh, uh, I don't think anyone's happier to hear that school

is done than Kyle Edwards.

As we found out from interviewing him earlier this season.

I definitely check that out.

If you go back on YouTube and, and find it.

Kyle was very hilarious about his future academic endeavors.

Yep.

Uh, did you get that, uh, text I sent you with the, um, the players of the week?

I sure did.

Gimme about 10 seconds here.

That's fine.

Sure.

I think I, I, I did that kind of as thing.

I was like, well, nothing much is really gonna change

in this game to make this, uh.

Yeah, I usually, I usually, uh, Gary and I usually have a conversation,

but some weeks it's just like, nah, this is the, this is what it is.

These, these are the, these are the answers.

It's, it's not much you can really, uh, argue with.

No.

Um, pretty clear.

We'll throw 'em up here now.

There we go.