Coastal Carolina baseball team readies to host Czech Republic squad

With the rain finally moving out of the area earlier this week, the Coastal Carolina baseball team is proceeding with its exhibition game Thursday night against the Czech Republic national team.

The game, scheduled for 6 p.m. on campus at Springs Brooks Stadium, is doubling as a fundraiser for former pitcher Ben Smith, who is receiving treatment for Burkitt’s leukemia/lymphoma. Admission is free, but the Chanticleers will collect donations to help with Smith’s medical costs.

Gilmore spoke at length about that cause when the game was announced last week, saying, “Us as a baseball group, a baseball family, if people come through the turnstile, if they don’t want to give anything obviously they don’t have to give anything. We welcome them to be here regardless, but we just want to let everyone know. It’s about all we can do aside from giving prayers and support, being able to hopefully take a little financial burden off their back by everyone giving just a little bit of something.”

Meanwhile, it’s also a great opportunity for the Chants from a baseball perspective too.

The rainy weather in recent weeks has put the team behind schedule with its fall workouts and forced the cancellation of several valuable intrasquad scrimmages, so the coaches will get as many players involved Thursday night to gauge progress and continue making evaluations with an eye to the 2016 season.

“[It will be good] just to see us get excited about being out here. The fall gets long and it’s tough to motivate guys day in and day out to come to practice, lift weights, study hall and not ever see another uniform. It will be a lot of fun,” Gilmore said. “This isn’t about winning. Obviously we’d love to win if we can win, but we’re not going to play this game like you’d play a regular game. If we have a pitcher get into a situation where maybe in a real game we’d make a move, we’ll kind of monitor pitch counts and allow some guys to work out of some things. ...

“We’ll probably throw five or six guys. It will be a good opportunity. We’ll play X number of guys.”

With a veteran core returning – including just about every key contributor except catcher Casey Schroeder and lefty Austin Kerr – from a team that went 39-21 last spring and returned to the NCAA regionals, Gilmore says the 2016 Chants have perhaps even greater potential if everything breaks right.

That includes the healthy return of senior right-hander Patrick Corbett, who has missed the last two seasons due to injury, and the continued progress and development of top incoming recruit Jason Bilous. The 6-foot-2 rookie right-hander, who turned down a $600,000 offer from the Los Angeles Dodgers as a 29th-round draft pick over the summer, is recovering from Tommy John surgery that cost him his senior high school season.

“When we start in February where are these guys going to be? I don’t have a crystal ball, but I look at where we’re at and where we might could be,” Gilmore said. “The schedule is so insanely hard, if we can hold our own for six weeks and during that point in time Bilous gets completely healthy and develops into a guy that can jump into the mix and legitimately help us and Corbett can be that guy as well ... and we get everyone healthy and keep them healthy, then we’ve got a shot to be really good.

“How we play those first six weeks will determine whether we’re fighting for our life to just get into a regional or if we get out of the gate and play well, do we have a chance like last year where we’re sitting on the fence [with] a chance to host a regional?”

Fans attending the game Thursday can get an early glimpse at that team, and some of the potential impact transfers and newcomers Gilmore thinks can make a difference in the spring.

And while there’s still a lot of ifs and unknowns at this point, as he noted, Gilmore reiterated some very encouraging statements about the potential for this team to be the best Chanticleer squad since the 2010 team that hosted an NCAA super regional.

“In a [situation] like 2010 where everyone’s healthy and develops, we have a chance to be the best team that’s had a chance to be that since then,” Gilmore said. “But it’s all got to pan out right.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 8:46 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina baseball team readies to host Czech Republic squad."