As if that series win at East Carolina wasn’t enough, get this, Brian O’Connor takes his boys on the road once again and opens ACC play against No. 2 Florida State with a 5-0 win at Dick Howser Stadium. Yep, that team that came in hitting over .900 or so… they got blanked.

Wow.

Steven Proscia and the Cavs had their game-face on tonight.

Nice win for the Wahoos, going into Tallahassee and completely shutting down an offense I didn’t think was capable of being shut down. I mean, this was like it was some kind of rolling blackout or something. Do me a favor, remember the names of Danny Hultzen, Dan Grovatt and Steven Proscia for me. You’re going to hear them again.

On the descending side of the ledger, I witnessed another East Carolina shortcoming out west as the Pirates dropped their third game of the week, this time game two in Malibu to a resurgent Pepperdine team. More on that below, let’s get to the nightly news first. And there’s a lot of it ‘coz I felt like staying up extra late tonight – just for the hell of it.

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THREE UP.
The best of the day.

1- VIRGINIA
Won at No. 4 Florida State, 5-0.
This was a total squashing. The Wahoos held the invincible bats of FSU to just three hits and issued no walks, while committing no errors. Dan Grovatt went a blistering 4-for-5 and Steven Proscia scored twice on two hits to give the Cavs all the offense they’d need.

Starting pitcher Danny Hultzen held the ‘Noles to two hits in his 6.0 innings of work. And no, Mike Martin didn’t play backup players the entire game. We ARE talking about three total hits from the regular starting lineup that included Tyler Holt, Stephen Cardullo, Stuart Tapley and Mike McGee in it. Again… Wow.

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2- THOSE COLD-WEATHER ROAD WARRIORS.
These northern denizens showed some brass and kicked some ass down in the sun belt tonight.

- Kansas.
Won at No. 1 LSU 11-9.
Credit the experienced Jayhawks, who raced out to an 11-3 lead, only to see it wilt away. But most teams would’ve folded their wimpy tents when LSU started making one of its patented magical comebacks. Yet KU kept its eyes on the prize and kept its cool in the late innings to pick up the W in Alex Box Stadium.

- Louisville.
Won at No. 20 Ole Miss 6-1 in 12 innings.
Cards offense puts up a 5-spot in the 12th, but the real heroes were relievers Derek Self and Neil Holland, who combined for 5.2 innings of one-hit, one-walk, seven-K work in shutting down the Rebs.

- Illinois.
Won at No. 12 Coastal Carolina 11-10.
The Illini scored three runs in the bottom of the 9th to pull out their seventh win over a ranked team in the last two years. Yes, that was not a misprint there. The orange and blue chased CCU ace Cody Wheeler after getting nine hits and six runs off of him in 6.0 innings of work.

- Boston College.
Won at No. 13 Miami 3-0.
What a way to open ACC play for the Eagles. Starter Pat Dean went 8.0 innings, striking out nine Canes and walking just one, while giving up six hits in all. The defense played scratch-free, except for a harmless catcher’s interference in the 3rd inning.

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3- D.D. HANKS, PITCHER, SOUTH ALABAMA
It was a helluva night to be a Jaguar, I tell ya’. In their 3-0 win over Arkansas-Little Rock, the USA ace tossed a complete game three-hitter and struck out 14 Trojan batters in the process. Dean gave up two hits in the bottom of the 1st inning, then just one single the remainder of the game. Oh, and tonight’s win was also head coach Steve Kittrell’s 1,000th career win from the bench.

Kittrell would say after the game, “That was one of the better games I’ve ever seen pitched in my career.”

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HONORABLE MENTIONS.
Those that just missed the list but certainly deserve a shout across the rooftops.

- Tyler Burnett, Middle Tennessee State.
Burnett smashed a two-run homer to tie UL-Monroe in the bottom of the 7th. Then, in the bottom of the 11th, he cemented things with an RBI double to win the game, 5-4.

- Asher Wojciechowski, pitcher, The Citadel.
In the Bulldogs’ impressive 4-0 win over Western Carolina, the ‘Dogs’ ace improved to 4-0 with 8.0 innings of six-hit work, in which he also struck out 14 batters.

- THE ALARM CLOCK WINS
These ranked teams woke up just in time to stage late comebacks and avoid embarrassing upsets at home:

* Arizona State.
Overcame a 7-2 deficit with six runs in the bottom of the 7th to beat Auburn 9-8. Five of Auburn’s eight runs were unearned as the Devils played ragged baseball. Yet, with the win, head coach Tim Esmay set a Sun Devil record with most consecutive wins in a coaching debut at 13 straight.

* Texas.
Badgered and handcuffed all night by a solid-but-unspectacular Iowa team, the Longhorns score one in the 8th and another run in extra frames to scrape by the Hawkeyes, 2-1. Tant Shepherd got the game-winning dong-shot with one out in the 10th. (Pfft!… he said “dong-shot”)

* Texas A&M.
Against Washington State tonight, the Aggies rally for three runs in the bottom of the 7th to take their first lead of the game. In the 9th inning, with the tying run just 90 feet away, Aggie reliever John Stilson induced two strikeouts to end things just in a nick of time.

* Baylor.
Must be something in the water around the Brazos Valley, ‘coz BU was also able to rebound late to beat an inferior foe from the north. Bears score three runs in the bottom of the 8th to outlast Illinois-Chicago 9-7. The Flames had the bases loaded in the 9th, but couldn’t push anything across.

* Southern Miss.
The Eagles scored three runs in the bottom of the 9th inning to pull out an improbable 4-3 win over visiting Missouri State. Worse yet for the Bears, two costly errors that would’ve ended the game, kept USM’s hopes alive long enough to see Mark Ellis knock in Marc Bourgeois with a jog-off double.

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THREE DOWN.
The worst of the day.

1- MOTHER FREAKIN’ NATURE… AGAIN.
Dammit woman… stop it NOW!
According to my count – which is not guaranteed of course – a full 40 games were affected by rain today. That means there were 40 games that were either post-poned, interrupted or canceled altogether today in Division I baseball. Crap!

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2- THE GIFT THAT WAS WRAPPED IN RAIDER RED.
TCU 8 – Texas Tech 7.
The Double-Ts committed two costly errors, walked six, threw four wild pitches, plunked three batters, allowed two passed balls and also gave up five unearned runs in the loss at TCU on Friday night. Oh, and the salt in the wound?… the tying run was picked off of third base by Frogs All American catcher Bryan Holaday to get the last out of the game.

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3- RICE
Lost to Cal for the second straight day, 6-4.
Not that the Bears are a bad team, but this is still unexpected. Today, the Owl arms gave up 13 hits to the Bears’ lethal bats. Mark Canha and Chadd Krist stayed scorching hot, both slicing a pair of stinging doubles, after each homered in yesterday’s 8-6 win. Berkeley Boys go for the unlikely sweep tomorrow.

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DISHONORABLE MENTIONS.
The rest of the worsts, so to speak.

- West Virginia’s offense.
Lost to Manhattan 4-3 and 13-1.
And not that the Jaspers aren’t a good team or anything – they’re now 7-3 – but the ‘Neers have one what was expected to be one of the more potent offenses in the game. Today, in 16 innings of work (game one was a 7-inning game), they scored just four runs on 12 hits.

- New Mexico State’s offense.
Lost 13-2 vs. Georgia State today.
The Aggies had a six game stretch where they scored 17, 33, 12, 15, 16 and 14 runs. But on Wednesday, they managed just four in a 13-4 loss to New Mexico, and then today, they could only muster five measly hits all game long.

- Tennessee’s chore for Saturday.
Because of games getting rained out in the Arby’s Classic in Knoxville today, there will be four games played on Saturday. Also, because of the pitching matchups, the Vols will now face two All Americans on Saturday, UConn ace Elliot Glynn in a 1:30pm game and Ohio State’s Alex Wimmers in the 8:30pm nightcap.

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Let's see... lots of sunshine, palm trees, Pacific Ocean, Goodyear Blimp. Yep, all is perfect for another ballgame at Pepperdine.

- WHAT I SAW AT EDDY D. FIELD STADIUM TODAY.
Once again, it was the Pirate ship being run aground by an angry reef called the Pepperdine Waves. It was a nolo contendre nearly from the beginning as the Waves raced out to a quick 2-0 lead after one inning and never looked back.

E. Carolina – 000 000 003 – 3 7 3
Pepperdine – 230 500 00x – 10 12 0

Robert Dickmann was the MAN for the Waves today.

WP: Robert Dickmann (3-1)
LP: Zach Woods (2-1)
Save: none

Top Hitters.
Pepperdine:
- Nate Johnson 3-for-5, 4RBI, 2HRs
- Harrison Kain, 2-for-4, 1RBI
- Joe Sever 1-for-2, 2RBI

East Carolina:
- Kyle Roller, 2-for-4, 2RBI
- John Wooten, 2-for-4

Talk about being in your comfort zone. That was Robert Dickmann today. The fifth-year senior got the start in game two of this series over the usual No. 2 man, Matt Bywater, and he didn’t waste his opportunity.

The crafty, off-speed-heavy southpaw went the distance in the game, throwing just 103 pitches, 71 of which were for strikes. In fact, he was so comfy out there against the uber-aggressive Pirates, his 6th and 7th innings both required just seven pitches to complete.

Dickmann was quoted as saying, “They (ECU) are a very aggressive team and were just hacking away at times. I mixed my pitches in and out, kept my fastball down and caught them off-guard with some of my off-speed pitches.”

The Pirates had six first pitch outs in the game – though it felt like 20 or so. They were about as aggressive as an offensive team as I’ve seen since Cal State Northridge’s home run barrage of 1996 or Clemson’s offense of 1994 behind leadoff man Shane “Swing first, ask questions later” Monahan.

The usually-steady ECU infield had a few hiccups.

Of course, it didn’t hurt Dickmann’s calm demeanor that the Waves offense was showing some unusual power, as Nate Johnson slapped a pair of moon shots to the scoreboard in right field. The first one helped stake Pepperdine to an early 2-0 lead after one inning and then his second two-run dinger in the 4th inning took the wind out of the Pirate schooner for good.

The other surprising story of the game was the somewhat shoddy defense that the Pirates displayed, including three errors and the many extra outs that ECU gave the Waves that led to extended innings and multiple pitching changes. Zach Woods was one player I was really looking forward to seeing after head coach Billy Godwin raved about him when I talked to him on Wednesday.

But Woods couldn’t see the forest for the trees, digging himself a quick 5-0 deficit after two innings, which would result in a quick hook. But his replacement didn’t fare much better as Patrick Somers was able to sit the Waves down one-two-three in the 3rd inning, but then imploded to give up five runs in the first six batters of the 4th inning, seeing the lead balloon from 5-0 to 10-0.

The loss sends the reeling Pirates to a 7-6 mark on the season and their 14th straight loss in games West of the Rocky Mountains, dating back to 2004. Pepperdine may just be showing signs of life, now sporting a 6-8 record that includes wins over the No. 17 Pirates, Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine and Oregon.

The getaway game between these two is slated for Saturday.

Nate Johnson gets a heroes welcome after his second home run.

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Okay boys and girls. Glad I could help you enjoy your morning muffin and over-priced coffee from Starbucks a little bit better this morning. I’m going to hit the hay now.

G’night.