Adam MacDonald
The Valdosta Daily Times
VALDOSTA — VALDOSTA — Two of the best teams in Division II baseball will battle for South Region supremacy beginning today at Billy Grant Field.
The No. 12 Valdosta State Blazers host No. 1 Florida Southern in a three-game series starting with a doubleheader today at 1 p.m. The series wraps up on Sunday with a single game at 1 p.m.
“We’re so excited,” Blazers pitcher Jeremy Forbus said. “We’re looking forward to it more than anything else, even Tampa. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s what you play for. You don’t put in all the blood and sweat during the fall to play teams like (Tiffin), you put it in to beat the Florida Southerns.”
The series will be a rematch of last year’s second round game in the South Region tournament. Florida Southern beat VSU 6-3 to send the Blazers to the loser’s bracket in the double elimination tournament. Two games later the Blazers were eliminated by Southern Arkansas.
Florida Southern eventually lost to Lynn in the South Region finals.
The Blazers (18-5), who average 8.91 runs per game and are second in the Gulf South Conference in team batting average, will be put to the test against the Moccasins great pitching staff.
Florida Southern coach Jim Tyrrell has a great history with pitchers. Before taking over as head coach last year, Tyrrell was the Mocs pitching coach for four years and helped the team to a national championship in 2005. Before arriving at Florida Southern, he was Justin Verlander’s pitching coach at Old Dominion.
This season, Florida Southern (18-2) boasts some of the best pitching in Division II. Max Russell (4-0) has a 3.30 ERA and has struck out 41 batters in 30 innings. Tucker Pryor has a 2.88 ERA with 25 innings pitched.
If the game gets late and the Mocs are in the lead, it will be tough for the Blazers to come back against closer Daniel Tillman, who has the Sunshine State Conference’s lowest ERA at 1.69. Tillman has five saves and 26 strikeouts in only 15 innings. In last year’s South Region game against VSU he struck out four of the last five batters of the game for the save.
The Blazers counter with power. All-American Brandon Decker leads the GSC in home runs (7), RBIs (34), runs scored (33) and total bases (62). He is fourth in the GSC in batting average (.453) and hits (34). Decker has been walked or hit by a pitch 29 times.
Clayton Cain is hot on Decker’s heels with six home runs, 25 RBIs and a .429 batting average. Antonio Clark, Jon Koenigsfeld, Ryan Danbury and Austin Smith are batting well over .300 with at least 60 at-bats.
Not to be overshadowed is VSU’s pitching staff. The Blazers lead the GSC with a 3.19 team ERA and 185 strikeouts.
Forbus (3-0) is second in the GSC with a 1.80 ERA. Ross Gusky is 4-0 with 3.00 ERA and Brett Kennedy (4-2) has three complete games and 42 2-3 innings pitched. All three pitchers have been named GSC East pitcher of the week this season.
Guilliams said Kennedy and Gusky will definitely start two of the three games. The third game will come down to Forbus, Tanner Fudge and freshman Luke Connell. Forbus started Tuesday’s game against Tiffin and Fudge usually starts games on the weekend.
“Part of it will depend on who we use in relief,” Blazers coach Greg Guilliams said.
Wade Kirkland leads the Mocs at the plate. Kirkland is fifth in the Sunshine State Conference with a .447 batting average. He has five home runs and 28 RBIs. He is also a perfect 11 for 11 in stolen base attempts.
Kevin Clark is right behind Kirkland with a .369 batting average, six home runs and 23 RBIs. The Mocs have seven players batting over .300.
One thing the Blazers are trying to correct is all the errors. Of the 109 runs scored against VSU this season, 42 have been unearned (38.5 percent). VSU’s 45 errors are the most in the GSC.
“I think we will face the best team that we have seen all year this weekend,” Guilliams said. “If we don’t have our A game, we won’t win. To me, it starts with our defense. We’re making too many errors right now. If you do that to Southern, you’ll lose, because they have exceptional pitching.”
