Javier Morales took first place in the 2010 Arizona Press Club’s Metro Sports Reporting category. For a different look at University of Arizona sports, check out Javier’s unique Web site: WILDABOUTAZCATS.net

Some things to think about while watching Arizona play South Carolina in the College World Series championship round starting Sunday night in Omaha, Neb.:

>> This whole SEC vs. Pac-12 and East vs. West thing is overblown, but something to fill blogs and articles nonetheless. How regional are these teams? Very much so. The westernmost player on South Carolina’s roster is freshman pitcher Joel Seddon from St. Claire, Mich. The easternmost player on Arizona’s roster is junior pitcher Nick Cunningham from Indianapolis. …

>> If Arizona manages to beat South Carolina in the first two games of the best-of-three series, the Wildcats would finish the season with an 11-game winning streak, the longest to end a year in the program’s history. The previous best is five games that concluded the 1976 and 1980 championship seasons. …

>> Can this be right? Arizona once won 14 of its last 16 games — including the final game of the season — yet it did not win a national title? Hard to believe but yes, in 1973. Jerry Kindall’s first Wildcat team finished strong and beat arch-rival ASU 5-4 in Tempe in the last game of the regular season. But the Wildcats finished second in the WAC South standings and did not qualify for the postseason. …

>> You think that is amazing? Nothing can top this — South Carolina’s program boasts former players Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner. It was Wilson, of the New York Mets, who hit a slow ground ball that went through the legs of Buckner, the Red Sox first baseman, allowing the winning run to score for New York in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. But wait … the former South Carolina player named Bill Buckner goes by Billy Buckner, and he is a pitcher. He was only 6-years-old when the 1986 World Series was played. Billy Buckner broke into the big leagues in 2007 with the Kansas City Royals and is now in the — get this — Red Sox organization with Class AAA Pawtucket. …

>> Is there any kind of South Carolina-Arizona or Tucson connection? One remote one: Jim Pankovits, a former Tucson Toros player in the early 1980s, played his college ball at South Carolina. Pankovits played 11 seasons in Triple-A (including five with Tucson) and was a nine-year minor-leaguer and 28-years-old when he was finally called up to the majors with Houston in 1984. He got the call after Tucson finished a series in Las Vegas and flew to Honolulu, to play the Islanders. As they landed, Pankovits got the news that he had to take an immediate return flight to the mainland to Houston. After toiling nine years in the minors, Pankovits did not care about the day’s worth of air travel to finally reach his goal. Pankovits’ name has been misspelled many times: Pancovitz, Pankovitz, Pancovits, etc., but Planouits? One minor-league baseball card spelled his name that way when he was with Tucson in 1981 (pictured in this blog). Pankovits, 56, is now the manager of the Mariners’ Class AA affiliate Jackson (Tenn.) Generals. …

>> No matter how nerve-wracking the best-of-three series might seem, it is hard to match the real-life drama Arizona coach Andy Lopez endured after completing a series at South Carolina as the Florida coach in 1995. On the team flight back from Columbia, S.C., the Florida medical staff determined that Lopez needed to be evaluated right away after he became nauseated, broke out in a sweat and had pain in his left arm and fingers. Before getting on the plane, he experienced mild chest pains. The team made an emergency landing in Savannah, Ga., and he was taken to Savannah Memorial Hospital. He underwent an EKG, took a stress test (12 minutes on a tread mill) and had x-rays taken of his chest. Doctors determined he was in excellent health. …

>> South Carolina, vying for its third consecutive national title, has faced Lopez before when it sought to keep an impressive streak alive. The Gamecocks started the 2000 season with a 22-0 record when Lopez coached Florida to a 17-8 victory in Columbia. The Gators, 15-12 entering the game, scored 10 runs in the sixth inning against four different pitchers.

>> South Carolina has one complete-game performance this season from its starters; Arizona has 15. Unlike South Carolina coach Ray Tanner, Lopez, who has led Pepperdine, Florida and Arizona to Omaha, typically tolerates the pitch counts for his starters to reach the 120s before he thinks about pulling them. Kurt Heyer (13-2, 2.24 ERA in 153 innings) has seven complete games and today’s starter Konner Wade has five. “As I told our starters about five weeks in the season, I’ll come out and talk to you, but I’m just going to ask you what the weather is like on the mound and what it’s like in the dugout,” Lopez laughed at a press conference Saturday. “Because I’m going back in and when it’s 125, 130 pitches, then I’ll come out and make a pitching change.”

>> Those 15 complete games by Arizona equal the total number in the entire SEC this season. Michael Roth (Thursday in the College World Series vs. Kent State) has South Carolina’s lone complete game in 2012. “We shut down the amount of pitches (the starters) throw in their pens in between (starts). We do what you have to do,” Lopez said. “We’ve had to do that this year. It’s nobody’s fault. I’ll take full responsibility for it, but our pen hasn’t been as strong or as spectacular as I would like for it to be.”

>> One thing is for sure: South Carolina is resilient. Although the Gamecocks are 25-1 in their last 26 NCAA tournament games, their route back to the championship series has not been easy. They lost five of their first six SEC games in March and had a losing league record as late as mid-April when they were 6-7. Their record 22-game NCAA postseason winning streak was broken in their second game of the College World Series against Arkansas, sending the Gamecocks to the losers’ bracket. When a scheduled elimination game against Kent State was postponed Wednesday by rain, South Carolina had to keep its season alive by winning three elimination games in 36 hours Thursday and Friday, beating the Golden Flashes once and Razorbacks twice. In the last game against Arkansas, South Carolina trailed 2-0 before rallying for a 3-2 win. …

>> Arizona had its own lull in this long season, losing four of six games at Hi Corbett Field against league foes UCLA and Oregon between April and May. The Wildcats were 30-15 and 12-8 in the Pac-12, not all that substantial, after losing two of three against the Ducks in Tucson from May 4-6. But they finished 8-2 and tied for the Bruins for the league title and a chance to host the regional and super regional rounds at Hi Corbett Field. They have now won 16 of their last 18 games. “As the year goes on you have to learn how to win,” shortstop Alex Mejia said. “You can’t get caught up in the emotions if you lose a game.” …

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2012 at 10:24 am and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Alex Mejia, Andy Lopez, Konner Wade, Kurt Heyer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.