ACC CG (Tech v MD)

awbuzz

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Congrats to the team... Had some rough stretches this season. Great way to end ACC play!

Let's get ready for NCAA play !!!!
 

Eric

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Correct @AE87

So proud of these guys...I remember after the Pitt series how down I was, never seen this coming.
 
Squints

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Eric said:
This is what I said earlier this year

"Probably going to be a tough season...but glad to get the opening day win"

"We were not expected to have a very good team and the 1-3 start is showing just that so far"
Click to expand...

It's not just you. A couple of guys were out beating their "everything at Georgia Tech is mediocre" drum after that first weekend.
 
Whiskey_Clear

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Go Jackets!! Awesome job by this young team. They are a scrappy bunch and now they are champions.

Now let's get a national with the golf team.
 
CrackerJacket

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Ain't it great to have a GT team be a pleasant surprise for a change? This bunch was up & down all year but didn't get discouraged. They play defense and have become good situational hitters - not the usual Danny Hall squad. You can't help but see good things ahead in the next couple of years for such a young bunch.
 
GTNavyNuke

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Eric said:
This is what I said earlier this year
"Probably going to be a tough season...but glad to get the opening day win"
"We were not expected to have a very good team and the 1-3 start is showing just that so far"
Click to expand...

If you go back to early in the year, we sucked. We had a 112 RPI after week 4. We were playing bad baseball. If you go back and look at the posts, I was with Eric early in the season, but we changed as the facts changed.

Watching the game yesterday, it is summed up by
"Hall says he doesn't have a formula for winning these ACC Tournaments as an underdog.
"I don't really know, but I guess at the end of the day you have to play good baseball," he said. "In the end, our players played tremendous baseball."
http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/052514aab.html

Looking at the tourney stats ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Atlantic_Coast_Conference_Baseball_Tournament ), we played 5 games with no errors!!!! While we were the only tournament team to do so. But more importantly, our guys made plays that were incredible. Puerifoy set the game up with two great plays to start the game. His speed is incredible. The only reason that Gonzalez allowed that HR was he ran out of room. I thought he was going to bring the ball back. Watching the players in warm up and play, I can tell you that our team top to bottom was far faster, better arms and more baseball savvy than MD. The double that we got in the first inning to left field which was off the wall would have easily been caught by Gonzalez. I could go on, but we are just a good team now.

Being at the game was a real trip. 4.5 hours each way to be exact. I was lucky enough to go with a VT alum who really knows baseball and pitching (he's ok, he sent his kids to GT). Plus, we moved around the stadium and ended up 13 rows behind home plate from the 6th inning on (the shade had moved in). We were siting in the middle of really knowledgeable baseball fans with a running commentary on the game with second guessing on pitch selection and plays. Here are some observations and questions:
  • The entire non-MD crowd was with us. No one fears the turtle and they were nothing in the ACC and will be less outside of it.
  • If anyone has an opinion, the fans behind home plate thought that Roberts intentionally hit Schmit to start the 8th. The first pitch was behind Schmit and the second one hit him high and hard in the arm. He was really pissed and took a few steps toward the Roberts. You could see the tension as our players all started coming in. Hall immediately pulled Roberts. Since Schmit had hit a HR and scored 3 runs at various times, we had walked him after that. But he was the lead off hitter and we were only up by 3. I argued at the time that it wasn't intentional, but going back and looking at the box score, an intentional walk made sense. And maybe Roberts took it on himself to do a little damage .......
  • The play that got the most discussion was Justus decision in the 6th to turn the DP with no outs and the bases loaded rather than go home for one out. The ball was hit fast enough to him to easily get the runner going home. But he took the "sure" DP. That gave MD their only lead of the game, but we got the third out with no further damage. At the time I was glad we got the two outs but was not happy we were behind. People who know a lot more about baseball than me argued both sides.
  • There was surprising approval of the Triple Option (had to throw that in) and our fun first approach. Especially from some UNC fans and even a ND fan. (I did say we only ran the TO 15% of the time but were a run first team .......). I guess the grass is always greener on the other side .........
  • Justus was recognized to be one of the best players on the field followed by Puerifoy. (both Fr)
  • Stanton looked a bit tentative with his fastball and hopefully will be able to go this week.
  • I could list about a dozen or more sloppy or bad plays by MD. We outplayed then. But we had two base running errors - Puerifoy got double up at first when the ball was caught in shallow right field. And Gold got picked off at second to end the eighth. He wandered too far off and after a pitch the catcher caught him napping. That really hurt since Earnest then went back to the plate to start the ninth and got out (205 hitter).
On to the NCAA tourney. We could win our division or we could lose it. We should just play good baseball and let the chips fall where they may. We played good baseball against UVa and we swept by them because we didn't get timely hitting and UVa did. We won the ACC with good baseball and timely hitting. You need to be good and lucky to win these tourneys, especially the ACC where it is single elimination for many....... but I'm not complaining. (y)

Finally let me say that Nolan Alexander at WREK has done a great job. I am going to miss his commentary. He brought the student perspective to many of the games and made them much more enjoyable. THANKS!!
 
bat_082994

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GTNavyNuke said:
If you go back to early in the year, we sucked. We had a 112 RPI after week 4. We were playing bad baseball. If you go back and look at the posts, I was with Eric early in the season, but we changed as the facts changed.

Watching the game yesterday, it is summed up by
"Hall says he doesn't have a formula for winning these ACC Tournaments as an underdog.
"I don't really know, but I guess at the end of the day you have to play good baseball," he said. "In the end, our players played tremendous baseball."
http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/052514aab.html

Looking at the tourney stats ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Atlantic_Coast_Conference_Baseball_Tournament ), we played 5 games with no errors!!!! While we were the only tournament team to do so. But more importantly, our guys made plays that were incredible. Puerifoy set the game up with two great plays to start the game. His speed is incredible. The only reason that Gonzalez allowed that HR was he ran out of room. I thought he was going to bring the ball back. Watching the players in warm up and play, I can tell you that our team top to bottom was far faster, better arms and more baseball savvy than MD. The double that we got in the first inning to left field which was off the wall would have easily been caught by Gonzalez. I could go on, but we are just a good team now.

Being at the game was a real trip. 4.5 hours each way to be exact. I was lucky enough to go with a VT alum who really knows baseball and pitching (he's ok, he sent his kids to GT). Plus, we moved around the stadium and ended up 13 rows behind home plate from the 6th inning on (the shade had moved in). We were siting in the middle of really knowledgeable baseball fans with a running commentary on the game with second guessing on pitch selection and plays. Here are some observations and questions:
  • The entire non-MD crowd was with us. No one fears the turtle and they were nothing in the ACC and will be less outside of it.
  • If anyone has an opinion, the fans behind home plate thought that Roberts intentionally hit Schmit to start the 8th. The first pitch was behind Schmit and the second one hit him high and hard in the arm. He was really pissed and took a few steps toward the Roberts. You could see the tension as our players all started coming in. Hall immediately pulled Roberts. Since Schmit had hit a HR and scored 3 runs at various times, we had walked him after that. But he was the lead off hitter and we were only up by 3. I argued at the time that it wasn't intentional, but going back and looking at the box score, an intentional walk made sense. And maybe Roberts took it on himself to do a little damage .......
  • The play that got the most discussion was Justus decision in the 6th to turn the DP with no outs and the bases loaded rather than go home for one out. The ball was hit fast enough to him to easily get the runner going home. But he took the "sure" DP. That gave MD their only lead of the game, but we got the third out with no further damage. At the time I was glad we got the two outs but was not happy we were behind. People who know a lot more about baseball than me argued both sides.
  • There was surprising approval of the Triple Option (had to throw that in) and our fun first approach. Especially from some UNC fans and even a ND fan. (I did say we only ran the TO 15% of the time but were a run first team .......). I guess the grass is always greener on the other side .........
  • Justus was recognized to be one of the best players on the field followed by Puerifoy. (both Fr)
  • Stanton looked a bit tentative with his fastball and hopefully will be able to go this week.
  • I could list about a dozen or more sloppy or bad plays by MD. We outplayed then. But we had two base running errors - Puerifoy got double up at first when the ball was caught in shallow right field. And Gold got picked off at second to end the eighth. He wandered too far off and after a pitch the catcher caught him napping. That really hurt since Earnest then went back to the plate to start the ninth and got out (205 hitter).
On to the NCAA tourney. We could win our division or we could lose it. We should just play good baseball and let the chips fall where they may. We played good baseball against UVa and we swept by them because we didn't get timely hitting and UVa did. We won the ACC with good baseball and timely hitting. You need to be good and lucky to win these tourneys, especially the ACC where it is single elimination for many....... but I'm not complaining. (y)

Finally let me say that Nolan Alexander at WREK has done a great job. I am going to miss his commentary. He brought the student perspective to many of the games and made them much more enjoyable. THANKS!!
Click to expand...
Another thing I noticed in those stats is that we only hit one home run in the entire tournament, in the one game where we really didn't even need it :ROFLMAO:
 
GTNavyNuke

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bat_082994 said:
Another thing I noticed in those stats is that we only hit one home run in the entire tournament, in the one game where we really didn't even need it :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...

I really hope we make it to the CWS. Our team is built for that massive field in Omaha where very few will hit HRs and our outfielders can run all day to track down balls. The way Peurifoy and Gonzalez run, we could play in the small parks with two outfielders {slight hyperbole} but those two would probably be more effective than the three I watched from MD or VT.
 
CrackerJacket

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GTNavyNuke said:
I really hope we make it to the CWS. Our team is built for that massive field in Omaha where very few will hit HRs and our outfielders can run all day to track down balls.
Click to expand...

Y'know, we talked about this last year on the other site. The new bats + big Omaha park mean pitching depth, defense, speed, and contact hitting win CWSes now. Dead ball era redux!?

Hope glimmers, but first we have to break the regional & super-regional curse. It kills me when Hall calls for a sac bunt early like he did vs the Terps. We only get 27 outs - why burn one early, even if you're already up by 1 or 2? Fortunately, our guys busted the game wide open late, but we will be playing better teams than that from now on.
 
Stinger90

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CrackerJacket said:
Y'know, we talked about this last year on the other site. The new bats + big Omaha park mean pitching depth, defense, speed, and contact hitting win CWSes now. Dead ball era redux!?

Hope glimmers, but first we have to break the regional & super-regional curse. It kills me when Hall calls for a sac bunt early like he did vs the Terps. We only get 27 outs - why burn one early, even if you're already up by 1 or 2? Fortunately, our guys busted the game wide open late, but we will be playing better teams than that from now on.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Hall has done more bunting this year than I can recall. Hope he can make more of the right call
 
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