Later today the Cowboys will face the Trojans of Troy in the opening game of the Nashville Regional. Thanks to the Vanderbilt athletic department, all games are available on a webcast- for free. Just head over to the Commodores home page, and you're set. Now then, enough 'dore fluffing, back to baseball. The Nashville regional is home to our Cowboys, Vanderbilt, Troy, and Belmont, which should give us a great chance at making the regional final at least. This also marks the 6th time in 8 years that Frank Anderson has guided OSU to an NCAA regional appearance. After the jump I'll drop some quick knowledge on our opponents.
Troy, our first opponent, is the 3rd seed and enters the tournament with a 42-17 record, and 3 Louisville Slugger All Americans. Troy does not have the sexy numbers that Vandy does, they just win. As a club Troy is batting .294, lead by Tyler Hannah, who has 7 home runs. As a pitching staff they have a combined 3.73 ERA, and Sunday starter Ryan Score has a 5.23 ERA. We should be able to get hits against them, our job will be to convert them into runs better than we have in the past few games. Stop me if you've heard this before, but we should be able to beat the Trojans without much trouble. They are a solid team, but not in our league, if we play like we are capable of playing. Here's hoping we will.
Finally, the 4th seeded Belmont Bruins bring a 36-24 record to the regional. Belmont is basically Troy, but worse. As a staff they have an ERA over 4 (which is not a good sign) and are hitting below .300 (.299, but still below damn it). They are also an error prone team, with 90 on the year. Really, for Belmont, they are just happy to be here, this is their First Ever NCAA Regional, so congrats you crazy Bruins, welcome to the show. Also, if you're sitting there wondering, "who the hell is Belmont? Are they based at the racetrack?", you're not alone. Belmont actually is in Nashville, (why they hell does Nashville have all these damn smart kid schools? God damn monopoly), and was created inside an antebellum mansion (big bastard though, 19,000 square feet) and founded in 1849. Got it? Good.
Well then, hope everyone is gathered 'round the computer at 2 pm. today to watch some Cowboys baseball, and as always, Go Pokes.