This morning, we speculated about USC baseball’s pitching plan for their NCAA Tournament regional this weekend. Well, much of that speculation appears to have been answered.
In his pre-regional press conference on Thursday, Trojans head coach Andy Stankiewicz revealed that Grant Govel will start the team’s opener against Texas State Friday. This would save ace Mason Edwards for a potential matchup with host Texas A&M on Saturday.
“We’ll go with Grant Govel tomorrow, and then we’ll just kind of go from there,” Stankiewicz said via 247Sports. “We feel like he matches up really well against Texas State. Texas State can hit, man. We see that. We looked at the video. They’re physical. They’re strong. They’re like A&M, and then [No. 4 seed] Lamar is probably more like us.
“We’ve got a nice one-two punch with obviously Mason and Grant and then we’ve got Drew Johnson and Diego Velazquez kind of on that backend, so kind of ready to maybe come out of the bullpen if we need them or maybe start, obviously if we get later in the weekend. There’s different options that we have. But we feel like the job that Mason has done and Grant has done for us, a big part of our success is because of those two guys starting for us on a Friday and Saturday. We got a nice two-man up front to go at it, then we’ll go from there.
“We got to be careful because I think sometimes you get so concerned with the opponent, you kind of forget what you do. That’s got to be my message [this week] at practice.”
The decision certainly makes sense, but it also carries some risk. If the Trojans and Aggies face off again on Sunday or Monday, Edwards will likely not be available at all.
First pitch between USC and Texas State, with Govel on the mound, is set for 6:00 p.m. Pacific time/8:00 p.m. Central time Friday. The game will be televised by ESPNU.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Grant Govel to start USC baseball’s NCAA Tournament opener
Reporting by Adam Bradford, Trojans Wire / Trojans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
