This weekend the Pirates hosted the 19th Keith LeClair classic, an annual event to honor their late coach that passed away from ALC in 2006. The teams that attended were Maryland, Indiana State, and most notably Michigan. The Wolverines head coach Erik Bakich and assistant coach Nick Schnable both played under LeClair, at East Carolina.
The weekend was opened up by familiar foes in an unusual setting, as BIG10 east division rivals Michigan and Maryland played an out of conference game. The Wolverines won the opener despite and early 4-0 deficit. They answered by scoring two in the 6th and 7th. The fatal blow came in the 8th when Joey Velazquez hit a pinch-hit 3-run homerun in his first at bat of the season to give Michigan a 7-4 lead. They held on to win 7-4, giving Coach Erik Bakich his 300th career win.
Later on, in the evening the Pirates played Indiana State and despite a subpar outing from starting pitcher Jake Kuchmaner, the Pirates beat the Sycamores 5-4. The talked about play in this one was with two outs and the bases loaded in the 6th inning Coach Godwin gave Zack Agnos the bunt sign. After the game Agnos was asked if the infield being deep played a role in the decision. He said, “yea I kind of thought about it on the first pitch and thought let’s see what he does then Coach Godwin gave it to me, and I didn’t even hesitate.” Agnos laid down the bunt perfectly to score the runner and extend the Pirates lead.
Saturday was a day of offense as both games as a total of 18 runs scored. Maryland started out the day beating Indiana State 12-6, and the Pirates followed it up with a 10-8 victory over Michigan. Saturday was well attended as 4,259 people made their way into Clark-LeClair Stadium; the 4th largest crowed in LeClair Classic history. The Pirates didn’t win this one without a little drama as they took a 10-3 lead into the 9th. Michigan scored five runs including a grand slam by Tito Flores. After the game Coach Godwin said, “my mom just told me Coach LeClair wouldn’t want ether team to win big so that’s why we had that 9th inning.”
On Sunday the Sycamores of Indiana State finally found the win column as they knocked off Michigan 6-5. The 2nd inning being the story of this one as the Sycamores scored 4 runs on 5 hits. The Pirates finished off the weekend sweep by beating Maryland 6-3. The Terrapins left the bases load in both the 6th and 7th inning. In the end Ryder Giles finished it off by getting the final seven outs and giving the Pirates their 6th win and first winning record of the season.
The Pirates are now 6-5 and have a brief two game road trip ahead as they head to Virginia Tech and Radford in the midweek. The Pirates sweep the 19th annual Keith LeClair Classic in hopes that we can work together to strike out ALS just as they struck out many of their opponents hitters this weekend.