Kyle Hansen pitches St. John's to win in NCAA regional opener

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- For starting pitcher Kyle Hansen, it was a matter of making amends for the past. For the rest of his St. John's teammates, it was a matter of repeating it.

Hansen pitched 7 1/3 strong innings to win for the first time in four career NCAA regional decisions and Sean O'Hare and Matt Wessinger each had three of the Red Storm's 16 hits Friday as St. John's repeated last year's first-round win over East Carolina.

This time it was an impressive 11-3 triumph at Boshamer Stadium that sent coach Ed Blankmeyer's Big East champions into the winner's bracket of the Chapel Hill Regional. SJU, the third seed in the double-elimination tournament, will play top-seeded North Carolina (which beat Cornell, 7-4) at 6 p.m. Saturday.

"Everything fell our way today," Blankmeyer said. "We got off to a good start and Kyle gave us the opportunity to spread the game out a little bit. For a first game of a tournament, we really swung the bats well."

Wessinger, Kyle Richardson and Jimmy Brennan each had two RBIs and Jeremy Baltz homered, doubled and scored three runs.

Picking right up where it left off during its four-game sweep of last week's Big East Tournament, the Red Storm (38-21) jumped out early on the Pirates (35-23-1), recording doubles in each of the first four innings. Although the hits yielded only two runs, SJU eventually broke the game open. Singles by Bret Dennis, Richardson, Wessinger and Frank Schwindel led to three runs in the fifth and a 5-0 cushion that seemed a lot bigger the way Hansen was pitching.

"My freshman year, we had probably the best offense in the Big East, and to see it come alive again was awesome," said Hansen, a junior from Glen Cove. "It was easy to pitch with the lead. I wanted to make up for the past two years when I went 0-3 in the regional. I wanted to get that win out of the way."

The 6-8 righthander allowed three runs and eight hits, struck out eight and didn't walk a batter. Two of the runs charged to him were scored after he gave way to Stephen Rivera in the eighth. By that time the Red Storm had built an 8-1 lead.

"I honestly think this was one of the best games we've played all year," Baltz said. "We're all pulling the same string in the right direction right now, and it feels good."

As well as the Red Storm is playing, Baltz and his teammates know how quickly things can change. After shutting out ECU in the opening round last year in Charlottesville, Va., St. John's lost two straight, including a rematch with the Pirates, and was eliminated from the tournament.

"You've got to keep an even keel," Baltz said. "If we see [ECU] again down the road, we're just going to look to do the same things we did today, get good pitching, play our style of baseball and not look ahead."