Post by elp525 on May 6, 2011 7:24:09 GMT -5
May 5, 2011
By Ryan Pritt
The Charleston Gazette
When WVU baseball coach Greg Van Zant looked around his infield before the season he probably saw former All-American Jedd Gyorko's empty shoes at shortstop and no one ready to fill them.
Van Zant said he looked in a few different places for help.
"We brought in two high school shortstops. I thought we needed a Junior College shortstop but we looked and only found a few and we didn't sign them. We had a gaping hole in our infield," Van Zant said.
As it turned out, Van Zant didn't need to look nearly as far.
WVU senior and former Herbert Hoover standout Grant Buckner had already been a key cog in the Mountaineer lineup, but he helped the team even more by vacating his normal posts at third base and the outfield and assuming the shortstop responsibilities. The rest, as they say, is history.
Buckner sits at fifth in the Big East with a .358 batting average and has blasted a league-best six home runs to help propel the Mountaineers (25-18 overall, 11-7 Big East) to a tie for third place in the conference with 10 games to go before the league tournament.
"If Grant doesn't go out and play shortstop this season, it's a huge failure," Van Zant said. "I'd always pictured him as a third baseman or right fielder, but once Grant got his chance in there he's done everything we want a shortstop to do. He's done a terrific job.
"The biggest thing about Buckner is he's just a winner on the field and off the field, he does everything to the best of his ability. Without Grant there's no way we could have come close to having this kind of success."
Buckner's contributions are even more important when taking into account the myriad of injuries that have struck the team this season. Third basemen Dan DiBartolomeo has missed several games with a shoulder injury but, according to Van Zant, should return soon. The same cannot be said for cleanup hitter and former Nitro standout Matt Frazer, who went down with a broken leg in a game against Temple and will take a medical redshirt. Also lost for the rest of this season and all of next season is freshman pitcher Harrison Musgrave, who blew out an elbow and will require Tommy John surgery.
DiBartolomeo's return should help a WVU offense that has produced just 19 runs over its past six games in which the team is 3-3.
But while Buckner and the Mountaineers have found some success this season in the face of adversity, Van Zant has experienced his own success on an individual level. The coach picked up his 500th career win at WVU in a 6-3 victory over Seton Hall in April, becoming just the second coach in the school's history to achieve that mark since the school started playing only Division I opponents.
"With winning that many games the amazing thing about it is how quickly time goes by," Van Zant said. "It doesn't seem that long ago that I was in my first year of being the head coach and my two assistants and I were trying to figure out how to win a game.
"We started 0-5 and it took us six games to win that first one. We've had a lot of talented players come through the program and I've always had top-shelf assistants and we get excellent support from the administration."
As for this season's squad, three games with Cincinnati this weekend and a game at Akron on Tuesday are all that separate WVU from a pivotal three-game set at second-place Pittsburgh. The Panthers sit just one game ahead of the Mountaineers in the conference standings at 12-6. Connecticut looks to be running away with the regular-season title, sitting at 15-3. But Van Zant wouldn't look ahead to the Panthers or the postseason just yet.
"I hate to put a ceiling on our guys, we just try to win the next game we're playing," Van Zant said. "We've got 10 games left in the regular season and we're just trying to win one more game. You never know what might happen."
By Ryan Pritt
The Charleston Gazette
When WVU baseball coach Greg Van Zant looked around his infield before the season he probably saw former All-American Jedd Gyorko's empty shoes at shortstop and no one ready to fill them.
Van Zant said he looked in a few different places for help.
"We brought in two high school shortstops. I thought we needed a Junior College shortstop but we looked and only found a few and we didn't sign them. We had a gaping hole in our infield," Van Zant said.
As it turned out, Van Zant didn't need to look nearly as far.
WVU senior and former Herbert Hoover standout Grant Buckner had already been a key cog in the Mountaineer lineup, but he helped the team even more by vacating his normal posts at third base and the outfield and assuming the shortstop responsibilities. The rest, as they say, is history.
Buckner sits at fifth in the Big East with a .358 batting average and has blasted a league-best six home runs to help propel the Mountaineers (25-18 overall, 11-7 Big East) to a tie for third place in the conference with 10 games to go before the league tournament.
"If Grant doesn't go out and play shortstop this season, it's a huge failure," Van Zant said. "I'd always pictured him as a third baseman or right fielder, but once Grant got his chance in there he's done everything we want a shortstop to do. He's done a terrific job.
"The biggest thing about Buckner is he's just a winner on the field and off the field, he does everything to the best of his ability. Without Grant there's no way we could have come close to having this kind of success."
Buckner's contributions are even more important when taking into account the myriad of injuries that have struck the team this season. Third basemen Dan DiBartolomeo has missed several games with a shoulder injury but, according to Van Zant, should return soon. The same cannot be said for cleanup hitter and former Nitro standout Matt Frazer, who went down with a broken leg in a game against Temple and will take a medical redshirt. Also lost for the rest of this season and all of next season is freshman pitcher Harrison Musgrave, who blew out an elbow and will require Tommy John surgery.
DiBartolomeo's return should help a WVU offense that has produced just 19 runs over its past six games in which the team is 3-3.
But while Buckner and the Mountaineers have found some success this season in the face of adversity, Van Zant has experienced his own success on an individual level. The coach picked up his 500th career win at WVU in a 6-3 victory over Seton Hall in April, becoming just the second coach in the school's history to achieve that mark since the school started playing only Division I opponents.
"With winning that many games the amazing thing about it is how quickly time goes by," Van Zant said. "It doesn't seem that long ago that I was in my first year of being the head coach and my two assistants and I were trying to figure out how to win a game.
"We started 0-5 and it took us six games to win that first one. We've had a lot of talented players come through the program and I've always had top-shelf assistants and we get excellent support from the administration."
As for this season's squad, three games with Cincinnati this weekend and a game at Akron on Tuesday are all that separate WVU from a pivotal three-game set at second-place Pittsburgh. The Panthers sit just one game ahead of the Mountaineers in the conference standings at 12-6. Connecticut looks to be running away with the regular-season title, sitting at 15-3. But Van Zant wouldn't look ahead to the Panthers or the postseason just yet.
"I hate to put a ceiling on our guys, we just try to win the next game we're playing," Van Zant said. "We've got 10 games left in the regular season and we're just trying to win one more game. You never know what might happen."
