GREENVILLE, N.C. - Cliff Godwin and East Carolina enter the 2017 college baseball season with renewed determination after making it to the Super Regionals in Lubbock, Texas last season and coming just one sacrifice fly away from making it to Omaha.
The Pirates went 38-23-1 last year and ECU opens this season against Ole Miss on the road for a three-game set in Oxford on February 17.
"Obviously this is an exciting time. We start with our first official team practice on Friday. There is a lot of stuff going on around the stadium," said Godwin, "Our guys have done a tremendous job in of being very consistent in their preseason work, individual workouts and strength training and they're very excited about getting started on Friday."
The Pirates enter the season nationally ranked in virtually every poll and as high as 6th in America in one of them.
"It's great for our program and great for our kids. I think it's the highest ranking that East Carolina has ever received in the preseason, but I tell our kids every day that they don't pass out trophies for the preseason and we've got to focus on getting better ever single day and not worry about the outside external noises from the media," Godwin told PirateIllustrated.com, "If we're number one at the end of the year I'll be very proud. At the end of the day we've got to have a great body of work to end up where we want to be at the end of the season."
ECU returns seven key positional players that include Luke Bolka, Turner Brown, Bryce Harman, Travis Watkins, Eric Tyler, Dwanye Williams-Sutton and Charlie Yorgan.
Their top returning starting pitchers Evan Kruczynksi and Jacob Wolf return along with relievers Matt Bridges, Chris Holba, Joe Ingle and Sam Lanier.
Top newcomers include pitchers Jake Agnos who is the Washington Post player of the year, Trey Benton, Hunter Hood and Tyler Smith along with Georgia All-State and all-region outfielder Dusty Baker and combination 1st baseman/outfielders Spencer Brickhouse who is a Baseball America first team all-america pick and third team all-america pick Bryant Packard.
The Pirates do lose outfielder Garrett Brooks and Parker Lamm along with pitcher Jimmy Boyd to graduation but the team comes in healthy for the most part with no key injuries hoping to keep the momentum that was built last season going into this year's campaign.
PirateIllustrated.com was there to bring you individual interviews from media day with the coaches and players in the links below.
