Wake Forest Athletics
100% COTTEN: Cotten Briefs
5/13/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 13, 2005
Terrible Tuesday
Over the next two ACC series Wake Forest's first order of business will be to play its way into the top seven and avoid the bottom four with the ACC baseball tournament looming on the horizon. With eleven teams now as opposed to the familiar nine, the baseball tournament, set for Jacksonville, Florida, will take on a different look than in years past.
And for the four teams on the bottom - the view is straight up.
Those four teams get the lovely opportunity to get to Florida a day early for a fight to the finish, or better yet - start. They fight it out in a single elimination battle where the three losers go home after one day and the "winner" gets to advance to Wednesday's double elimination portion of the tournament against the number one seed - but minus two starting pitchers and probably others from the bullpen who helped survive Terrible Tuesday.
But each of the eleven teams has the equal opportunity to finish in the top seven and avoid all the mess. The Deacs are right on the cut line with six league games left as this goes to press. Three games with Clemson at Gene Hooks Stadium and three on the road to finish the season at Virginia Tech.
I'm excited to head south and call the games, but Wednesday is just fine with me, Deacs. Wednesday would be just fine.
Recruiting Trail
I've been doing a little recruiting of my own these days. But I haven't been beating the bushes for flashy point guards or 300-pound linemen. I've been in search of radio stations across the state willing to put the Deacons on the air. We've made good progress in strengthening our presence in the Durham-Chapel Hill market and will have an announcement soon there on a new 24-hour signal that will also hit the Raleigh market in the daytime. In addition, we're hopeful that by the Wake -Vanderbilt kickoff to have a new signal to help cover Raleigh at night.
Our newest addition is WBRM-AM in Marion, North Carolina, about half way between Hickory and Asheville and located at 1250 on the dial. The station has agreed to carry a good portion of the Deacon basketball schedule for the coming season. It began its relationship with the Deacs after carrying all of the ACC Tournament games this past March on the Wake Forest ISP Sports Network. So if you're traveling down the I-40 corridor west of Hickory plan to tune in the WBRM in Marion for Wake Forest basketball.
Come Fall, Come
As I've been here and there around the state this spring one question has been consistent: "How are we going to be in football this year?" The anticipation is building for Jim Grobe's fifth fall in Winston-Salem, and it won't be too long before the SEC's Vanderbilt Commodores come calling on the Deacs at newly facelifted Groves Stadium.
Benjamin Mauk and Cory Randolph will again battle in August for the right to lead the Demon Deacons (Mauk gets a head start after spring practice) on offense along with tailback Chris Barclay, and an athletic defense led by a busload of linebackers is poised to try to keep the Deacs' opponents out of the endzone.
So a strong finish to baseball is job one - then bring on the fall.
GO DEACS!
