THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605250738
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES C. BLACK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLEMSON, S.C. LENGTH: 41 lines
While temperatures soared, Old Dominion's bats froze during the NCAA Atlantic Regional baseball tournament.
The Monarchs left South Carolina having put some frail numbers on the scoreboard: one run and nine hits in two games.
``You have to remember who we're playing against,'' ODU coach Tony Guzzo said. ``We played against two of the better pitchers in the country.''
The Monarchs were spared facing Kris Benson (14-0) - the Clemson ace and prospective No. 1 pick in next month's amateur draft. However, Clemson's Billy Koch and Georgia Southern's Julio Ayala gave ODU more than it could handle.
Prior to this week, ODU had only been shut out one time this season and held to just one run on only two occasions.
``Billy Koch came in throwing cheese, probably hitting mid or low 90s with a real good slider,'' Ron Walker said.
Coming into their games against the Monarchs, Ayala (Thursday) and Koch (Friday) had combined for a 23-8 record and earned run averages each under 4.00. They used some very traditional methods in taming the Monarchs.
First, the pair shut down ODU's giant killers. Walker and Matt Quatraro combined for 14 hits and 11 RBIs in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament a week ago. In the two NCAA games, they were a meager 1 for 15 with no RBIs.
Also, they did not beat themselves. The Monarchs received only one walk in the two games and no errors were committed by the opponents' defenses. For Guzzo, those are the telling statistics.
``We're more of a manufacturing team, not a slug-it-out team,'' Guzzo said. ``If you look back at our season, when pitchers didn't walk anyone, we didn't score many runs. We're very opportunistic.''
ODU's situation was not helped by the suspension of outfielders Brian Fiumara and David Winter. They were two of four players who hit .300 or better in the regular season. Winter was suspended prior to the CAA tournament for academic reasons. Fiumara, who missed the first CAA game, was suspended this week for reasons still undisclosed. Guzzo said their absence was a small part of the equation.
``I don't know if it would have made a difference (Friday),'' Guzzo said. by CNB