CCU baseball team raises close to $4,000 for former player

The Coastal Carolina baseball program got a two-for-one Thursday night as its exhibition game against the Czech Republic national team provided a valuable opportunity for outside competition at this time of the year and, perhaps more valuable, an opportunity to raise money for a former player in need.

The Czech Republic team, which is competing against U.S. college teams in preparation for international competition, scored five runs in the eighth inning to rally for a 5-1 win.

But in other ways, it was a win for the Chants’ program. Coastal Carolina estimated a crowd of 1,500 and collected $3,578.30 in donations for former pitcher Ben Smith, who is undergoing chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed with Burkitt’s leukemia/lymphoma over the summer.

That’s not including money raised during the game from a percentage of concession sales and additional donations Thursday to the www.GoFundMe.com/bensmith account that is now up to $14,553 since its launch.

“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to be like this, but I was very, very happy,” senior pitcher Tyler Poole said of the crowd support. “Ben’s a great guy and I knew that there are so many people around here that are behind him and praying for him and helping him out with the GoFundMe.com website. ... But the turnout really surprised me.”

Smith, who ranks sixth in Chants history with a 2.57 career earned-run average and posted 181 strikeouts over 178 1/3 innings from 2002-14, was drafted by the Houston Astros in 2014 while recovering from Tommy John surgery and was preparing to make his professional baseball debut when he was diagnosed.

He is receiving monthly chemotherapy treatments at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, which results in additional personal costs for his family as he travels each month from their home in Georgia.

The Chants were hoping to help out with that, and the program’s supporters responded in kind.

“Hopefully we raised a little bit of money for Benny. That’s great,” coach Gary Gilmore said.

As for the game, Coastal Carolina took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on an RBI single from senior Connor Owings to plate senior Anthony Marks.

That’s how it stayed until the top of the eighth when the Czech Republic loaded the bases with no outs. After junior reliever Nick Masterson responded with a strikeout, he gave up a two-run single up the middle to Petr Sila and senior reliever Steven D’Amico yielded a two-run triple to Matej Hejma and an RBI sacrifice fly to Jakub Malik.

The Chants left the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth as senior David Parrett popped up to second to end the game.

From a baseball perspective, Gilmore was rather frustrated, but it’s only the fall and the Chants have plenty of time to smooth out their rough edges before the season starts in February.

“That’s about what we’ve been doing, which is very disappointing,” Gilmore said. “We’ve got to figure out who’s going to win some jobs. ... We have a million things we have to get better at and it was good, they exposed a whole lot of them. It was things I’ve been saying and I don’t think they believed me when I was saying them because we’re in practice. So that was good. I wish we had about 10 more games to get beat up like that and we might actually get better.”

Junior G.K. Young was the only Coastal Carolina player with multiple hits, going 2-for-4 in a game played with wooden bats. On the mound, meanwhile, Poole (2.0 innings, one hit, one walk, three strikeouts), senior Adam Hall (2.0 innings, one hit, four strikeouts) and freshman Chris Davidson (2.0 innings, one hit) combined for six scoreless innings.

“It was great just to see guys that aren’t wearing teal,” Poole said. “It really gives you a chance to come out here and compete and see what it’s like when you’re not pitching against your own teammates.”

It was an especially encouraging performance for the 6-foot-6 senior right-hander, who posted a career-worst 4.55 ERA last season while battling nagging back issues.

“I’m feeling really good. This offseason I have been working my tail off,” Poole said. “[Pitching coach Drew Thomas] has really been working with me, taught me a few things with my mechanics last year and it kind of took me a while to really get the groove of it, but I feel like I’m really starting to figure it out and I’m just treating my body really good. ... It just feels like everything is coming into sync now.”

This story was originally published October 8, 2015 at 9:48 PM with the headline "CCU baseball team raises close to $4,000 for former player."