Diamond Heels Optimistic About 2004

February 16, 2004 | Baseball

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Feb. 16, 2004

By Jones Angell
Tar Heel Monthly

Looking to build off its first NCAA Regional victory since 1989, the North Carolina baseball team is set for what promises to be an exciting 2004 season. The Tar Heels return 23 letterwinners, brought in the nation's top freshman class according to Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball and look to make an appearance in the College World Series for the first time in 15 years.

Tar Heel Monthly's Jones Angell was able to catch up with sixth-year head coach Mike Fox to talk about the season. Angell will also handle play-by-play duties on Carolina baseball radio broadcasts, which can be heard at TarHeelBlue.com.

Tar Heel Monthly: Are you using the success your team achieved at the end of last season as motivation for what you want to get accomplished this season?
Mike Fox: I don't know if I can say I'm specifically using it, but it is certainly there. Our players realize that we took another step last year, and we are capable of taking another one this year. I think that served as some motivation as we came back this fall. But also the difficulty of our schedule and what our players want to try to do with our program serves as motivation. Our success last season can only help us.

THM: You brought in a fantastic recruiting class. Do you expect them to contribute this season?
MF: We do expect some of them to contribute. It is the nature of college baseball. You are going to lose a lot of players after their junior year and you have to bring in players that are capable of helping you. We are expecting a few of the pitchers we brought in to help us on the mound. Andrew (Miller), Daniel (Bard) and Robert Woodard are good examples. We are expecting some, not all, of our freshmen to play and hopefully they can make the adjustment (to college-level baseball) quickly.

THM: What do you feel is the real strength of your team at this point?
MF: Our strength has to be on the mound at this point because of the experience and the numbers we have back. I would have to say relief pitching to be more specific.

With Garry (Bakker) and Adam (Kalkhof) back, we have two guys who can go out and keep us in some games and give us a chance to win. That is all we can ask out of our starters. We're going to have to pitch well to have a successful year.

THM: Is anything about the upcoming season keeping you up at night?
MF: Rice, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State (laughing). Seriously, I don't stay up at night worrying about much of anything. There are certain things that are out of your control. We're going to do the best we can, practice as hard as we can and prepare our guys as well as we can. We want to build on last year, have some fun and enjoy it. I think that is one thing I've learned. Early in my career here, I worried about how good everybody was as compared to how good we were going to be. I've realized that is wasteful stress on yourself. We are going to do the best we can against a challenging schedule.

THM: Let's break down your team and start with your starting pitching. It seems like you have a lot of talented options.
MF:This is one of the more experienced pitching staffs we've had-both starters and relievers. You've got to start with Adam Kalkhof and Garry Bakker when you're talking about our starters. Both of those guys started games for us last year, but I think they are being pushed by Andrew Miller and Daniel Bard. You can throw Scott Manshack in that mix as well because he has primarily been a starter for us throughout his career.

You have start with those five guys has far as our starters, but we also have Bryan Phillips who started a couple games for us last year. Even Whitley Benson started a couple games for us last year and we have entertained the thought of moving him a little bit more into that role. There has certainly been a lot of competition because we haven't told anybody who is doing what.

We have a nice combination of lefties, righties, experience and youth.

THM: Adam Kalkhof had a fantastic freshman year. What does he bring to your team?
MF: We hope that Adam can build off of what he did last year. Any time a freshman can come in and enter your rotation during ACC play, it speaks highly of his ability and talent. With last season's experience and his summer work in the New England Collegiate League I think he'll be a little more seasoned.

He'll still need to improve and hopefully the old sophomore jinx won't jump in there. Sometimes guys tend to get lackadaisical because things came too easy for them, but I don't think that's the case with Adam. He's got a good arm, a really good change-up and we're counting on him having a good year for us.

THM: Your bullpen is experienced, but has inconsistent the last couple of seasons. What is your impression of your relievers?
MF: Our biggest question mark is who is going to close for us. Are we going to have one closer or are we going to do it by committee again? ut, in my time here, this is the most experience coming back in the bullpen-both numbers-wise and experience-wise-we've had. Whitley, Scott Senatore and Kevin Brower are three seniors who have pitched a lot of games for us. There aren't going to be many situations in big games, in ACC games these guys aren't going to be used to.

We feel good about our bullpen because these guys have been here for four years and been through a lot of situations. They are talented and with Kevin being a submariner, Scott being a lefty and Whitley being a right-hander we have some different options and we'll use all of them.

THM: What about behind the plate? You have had some injuries there.
MF: With freshman Trent Kline's injury, Chris Ianetta is going to have to be an iron man for us. There is no question that he is our best guy behind the plate and the most experienced. He's a tough guy and he will catch as many games as he possibly can, but we'll have to give him a break sometime. He's already come to me and said he can catch every game on the weekend which is not ideal, but he's a guy that can do it. He's in good shape, he's a tough kid, he loves to play and he knows our pitchers. We'll keep our fingers crossed that he stays healthy because he is going to need to all year long.

THM: Who will back Chris up?
MF:Our options are Justin Webb and Mark Griffin. Mark's a junior in our program who started out as a bullpen catcher. A walk-on player for us who I think has made tremendous improvement. He's a good defensive catcher.

Justin Webb has been a utility player for us the last couple of years. When Trent was injured and had surgery, we immediately put Justin behind the plate. He's a good athlete. He's the best athlete of the three. He's been an infielder so he has a good, quick release, he just hasn't caught much. We've worked him a lot and he's going to play a lot in scrimmages and preseason. He may also play some short for us and he can back up Sammy (Hewitt) at third. We've got a lot of options with Justin, but right now he's our back-up.

THM: Up the middle your team lost its shortstop, Chad Prosser, to graduation, but returns second baseman Greg Mangum. How do feel about those slots?
MF: Yeah, Greg is penciled in at second base. He's had a great two years for us, but he really has to take charge this year. He doesn't have a senior beside him playing short like he did last year. In the mix at short is freshman Craig Corrado, Justin Webb, another freshman Bryan Steed, who was very impressive in the fall and Adam Weaver. We'll probably start with Craig there because he did some nice things in the fall and we'll see what happens.

THM: What about on the corners?
MF: At third, Sammy Hewitt and Justin Webb are the two guys we feel comfortable going with right now. Jay Cox is a freshman third baseman who really swung the bat well in the fall, but he needs to continue to work defensively. He can also play first.

Our best first baseman is probably Chris Ianetta, so when he doesn't catch, he's going to play first base for us. Sammy will also play some over there. Brack Massey, a freshman from Greenville, is also in the mix and he may very well play some early for us to see how he does. Brack really swung the bat well for us in the fall.

THM: Like at catcher, you have already suffered a key injury in the outfield.
MF: Unfortunately, we had the injury with Blair Waggett in the last game of our fall season and that really put a damper on us. He had a good freshman year for us and really made some great catches in the regionals. He and Chase Younts were really going to battle each other in center field, maybe even platoon there offensively. He's probably going to be out most of the year if not all.

So, Chase Younts is back in center field, a left-handed hitter who was out a lot last year with a pulled hamstring, but he seems to be fully recovered from that. We also put Mell Adams back in center because of Blair's injury. He's a senior, and he and Chase will be the guys in center field.

We moved Mike Daniel over to left after he played mostly in right last year. He's a sophomore who has really improved and gotten stronger. Matt Ellington, a redshirt freshman who was out last year with back surgery has been in left some for us as well and really swung the bat well in the fall.

Marshall Hubbard, a transfer from William and Mary who had to sit out last year is in right field.

THM: Marshall is a player that people who follow Carolina baseball may or may not have heard a lot about. How can he help you?
MF:We wish we would have had Marshall last year because he would have made a big impact last season as a big left-handed bat we could have plugged in our line-up. He had a great summer and is very capable. He swings the bat really well and hopefully he'll get off to a good start, but he's not faced ACC pitching yet like he is going to. He'll be in the mix in the middle of the line-up. The 3-4-5 slots, we'll probably hit him in the middle between Ianetta and Hewitt. That's a combination that will need to drive in some runs and do some things for us offensively.