St. John's familiar with ECU, Boshamer

The first game of the Chapel Hill regional on Friday will feature two teams that both played in Boshamer Stadium earlier in 2012.

But neither team is North Carolina.

St. John’s (37-21) and East Carolina are each making their second trip to Chapel Hill and while they are familiar with Boshamer they are also no strangers to each other.

The Pirates met the Red Storm a year ago in the Charlottesville Regional and here they are again.

“I think these are two very similar ball clubs … style of play, how we go about our business and how we play the game — I think both clubs are pretty comparable,” St. John’s head coach Ed Blankmeyer said. “We respect the East Carolina program. We know coach Godwin does a good job so we’ve got our hands full tomorrow.”

Friday’s game between St. John’s and East Carolina will be the eighth all-time meeting between the two programs and the Pirates lead the series 4-3.

Junior left-handed pitcher Sean Hagan remembers last year’s East Carolina club for their pitching staff but his team just needs to play their game.

“The biggest thing I remember about them is that they pitch, they pitch and they got some solid hitters,” Hagan said. “The biggest thing for us is just to play to our strength. We know we can pitch with anyone and we need to keep getting our timely hits and play small ball.”

Blankmeyer said that Hagan (8-2, 2.58 ERA) will pitch in game two of the regional and right-handed pitcher Kyle Hanson (4-5, 3.44 ERA) will get the start against the Pirates.

Hagan and his teammates are relishing in third straight trip to the regional round of the NCAA tournament especially as it’s been a long road for the 2012 Big East champions.

“At the beginning of the year there were a lot of high expectations for us and we kind of shot ourselves in the foot,” Hagan said. “We weren’t really playing good baseball at the beginning of the year. We played here at the beginning of the year and things have come full circle and it means a lot. I think it shows how hard we’ve worked and worked through the adversity.”

In order to succeed this weekend, the Red Storm will obviously need to avoid self-inflicted setbacks and Hagan wants to make sure those are a thing of the past.

“A lot of times this year when we lose, we’ve beaten ourselves,” he said. “So right now we just need to play good baseball, pitch, play defense first and foremost and work on the timely hits and grind out a few runs.”

Blankmeyer agrees the key for each of the four teams in the regional is, as simple as it sounds, to play good baseball.

“It starts with the guy on the mound,” Blankmeyer said. “He’s got to pitch it real well, you got a catch it and then if it comes to opportunities offensively when you get those you have to cash in on them. Tournament baseball is about playing good baseball – that’s what it is.”