BATON ROUGE — LSU coach Smoke Laval spoke Thursday afternoon at the annual Baseball Media Day in the press conference room of the LSU Athletics Administration Building. Laval, the 2003 SEC Coach of the Year, enters his third season at the helm of the Tiger program. He directed LSU last season to the SEC championship and a berth in the College World Series.
The 2004 Tigers — ranked No. 2 in the nation by Baseball America magazine — will play the annual Alumni Game at 6:30 p.m. Friday in Alex Box Stadium.
True freshman right-hander Michael Bonura, a product of St. Charles Catholic High School in LaPlace, La., is scheduled to start the game on the mound for LSU. Also expected to pitch is all-SEC left-hander Lane Mestepey, who missed last season after undergoing shoulder surgery in the summer of 2002.
The Alumni team — which is comprised of former LSU players currently active in professional baseball — features former all-America second baseman Todd Walker, a 2003 postseason star for the Boston Red Sox. Walker recently signed a 2004 contract with the Chicago Cubs.
Other former players scheduled to join Walker on the Alumni team include recent stars like catcher Brad Cresse, infielders Aaron Hill, Mike Fontenot and Ryan Theriot and outfielder Brad Hawpe.
The Alumni Game will be preceded at 5 p.m. by a Home Run Derby featuring the professional players.
Tickets to the Alumni Game will be on sale beginning at 4:30 p.m. Friday at the Alex Box Stadium ticket office.
Following are quotes from Laval during Thursday’s press conference:
“We have four very good catchers, one of the things that’s great is the depth that we have. Matt Liuzza is our number one catcher; he did a great job as a freshman. He only had five passed balls for the year. He will be the starter as a sophomore this year.
“Our back-up, which will also be our DH Nick Stavinoha, led the country in home runs the last two years in junior college. Our third catcher is Dustin Weaver who amazingly has spent three years at LSU and has not used up a year of eligibility. That is kind of hard to do; I guess we have to talk to our compliance director about that. Dustin Weaver is a great catcher, and he is continuing to develop as a hitter.
“Ty Jensen, who is a senior, will be our fourth catcher. He will probably get a little bit of work. We have a great catching staff. It is great to have the depth that we have there with Liuzza being our number one guy. This is just a great situation to be in, just in case we have a guy go down with an injury, we can just have another guy step in his place.
“Talking about our depth, if you remember last year Dustin Weaver opened up the season as our number one. He overcame some injuries, and then he had an arm problem. He can catch and throw right now, and he is in tiptop shape.
“Along with the starting pitching experience that we have, we also have Jason Determann, as you have seen in the Regionals and Super Regionals against Baylor. We may have to red shirt some freshmen; there are two or three that could pitch. One is Michael Bonura, who you will see take the mound tomorrow night. They (the freshmen) are very talented.
“We just really don’t know if Lane Mestepey can bring his magic. He is just not there yet.
“On the infield it is relatively an easy job. Ivan Naccarata can play third base and second base. When we open up tomorrow he (Naccarata) will be at third base. A gentleman by the name of Bryan Harris just had knee surgery, and he may have to redshirt this year. If he cannot play, the starter will be Blake Gill. He will move over from second base to shortstop. Then Matt (Horwath) would go play second.
“Blake Gill will start at second; he is a three-year player, with a lot of leadership qualities. At first base it will be Clay Harris. He has a preseason All-American nomination, and his brother Will (Harris) will back him up. All in all, what we are trying to do is start thinking. The old cliche’, ‘one game at a time,’ will apply to us. All the accolades that we have received are probably well deserved, being ranked in preseason so high. That is the bar that these kids have raised. Now they are expected to perform. Last year they lost three straight to Kansas, they had several injuries, and they weren’t supposed to go to Omaha. Somehow they did it.
“This big wave that (LSU football coach) Nick Saban has brought in, our plan is to see if we can somehow ride that wave. We tell our kids a story about how to win about surfers. Those guys are great, right; they have the long bleached hair. Those guys are always in the water, which is what we want our guys to do, is to spend more time on the field. When those surfers catch the wave, and ride it all the way in, they are teed off at themselves for not doing enough tricks. They get back out there to catch the wave and they fall off, then they are mad for falling off.
“In other words, surfers are never satisfied. The surfers start paddling a little bit ahead of the wave, that way when they do catch it, it works out. That is what our guys are trying to do. We had shirts made that say ‘Believe the Hype,’ but our hype is how you prepare everyday. We are not ready to play tomorrow, that is for sure.
“Our line-up, you can really switch around the batting order, it really does not make any difference. Nick Stavinoha will be kind of like the guy that will take Aaron Hill’s place in the line up. He will be the guy that hits homers, and the rest will just fall into place. J.C. Holt was MVP of the Cape Cod league. Jon Zeringue is back and better. Ryan Patterson may be the best we have had. Ivan Naccarata is back and playing with a lot of confidence. If we stay healthy it should be a good run, but we will start out slow. That is a rule here so you might as well say it now.
“We told our guys to beware, because people like to build you up so when it doesn’t go right, they can tear you down. We play 27 or 30 teams ranked in the top 20, but we accept that challenge. The part that bothers me is we think on the other side of the SEC the best team is South Carolina, and we play them on the road. Tennessee probably has their best team they have had since going to Omaha, and we play Tennessee on the road. On our side (the SEC Western Division) Auburn is just like us, they have a lot of people back, and we play Auburn on the road. The number two team on our side is Ole Miss, and we play Ole Miss on the road.”