Rainbow Warriors Baseball
At Les Murakami Stadium
Marshall (0-0) vs. Hawaii (0-0)
When: 6:35 p.m. Friday, 1:05 p.m. Saturday doubleheader, 1:05 p.m. Sunday.
TV: Spectrum Sports (Friday only)
Radio: 1420-AM Friday, Game 1 Saturday, Sunday; 1500-AM Game 2 Saturday
Note: First game Saturday is seven innings; second game is nine innings.
There is no easy way to navigate the 4,545-mile trip from Huntington, WVa., to Honolulu.
After practice Tuesday, the Marshall baseball team made the 21⁄2-hour drive to Cincinnati, where they stayed overnight, then flew to Denver, and then to Honolulu ahead of Friday’s opener of a four-game series against Hawaii at Les Murakami Stadium.
“I know we’re going to have a great challenge playing in Hawaii,” Marshall head coach Greg Beals said. “They’re coming off a great season. I have a ton of respect for Rich (Hill, UH’s head coach) and his assistants. I’m excited to see what we’re going to do. There’s a piece of vacation in it, but there’s an awful lot of baseball that we’ll be playing. That’s the main idea of the trip.”
Reflecting Huntington’s workmanlike diligence, Beals does not complain about the perceived disadvantages of preparing a baseball team on a snow-blanketed campus where temperatures were in the low brrrr the past week. The Thundering Herd’s color is green, but their attitude is blue-collar.
Huntington “is a small community, it’s an old, small town,” Beals said. “It’s an old steel town. We still have a steel mill that runs 24/7. We’re shipping coal on the (Ohio) River. It’s an old, blue-collar town, and the people are phenomenal. They bleed green.”
That support led to the hiring of Beals in January 2023 and, 14 months later, the completion of the $30-million Jack Cook Field. “Marshall University never owned its own baseball stadium before,” said Beals, who praised the leadership of school president Brad Smith and athletic director Christian Spears.
Prior to the new stadium’s opening, the Herd held practices and played some games at Kennedy Center Field, a facility run by the YMCA, or two miles away at GoMart Ballpark, the home field for the minor league Charleston Dirty Birds. The Herd still use the Chris Cline Athletic Complex, an indoor football facility, for baseball practices on snowy days.
Beals was involved in helping to plan the features of the new stadium, such as the artificial turf, dugouts, netting, padded fence, “batter’s eye” backdrop in center field, and the adjoining building that has offices, locker rooms and an indoor batting cage.
“This is year 32 for me (in coaching baseball),” Beals said. “I’ve been around the block, and used all that experience to help build what we’re doing here at Marshall.”
Beals also has been focused on building a roster, particularly a pitching staff. Bryce Blevins, a left-handed junior, was named to the 2024 All-Sun Belt first team after compiling a 3.45 ERA and striking out 71 while issuing 20 walks in 86 innings last season.
“Bryce is a competitor,” Beals said. “He gives us a chance to win. We’re going to have more support around him from the pitching staff standpoint. The depth of our pitching staff probably was the No. 1 area that we felt we needed to address in building up this ball club.”
Beals said Blevins will pitch in Friday’s opener. Right-handers Fenix DiGiacomo and Griffin Miller will start games in Saturday’s doubleheader. There is no decision yet on Sunday’s starter. “We’re still in the figuring-things-out stage,” said Beals, noting no Herd pitcher has thrown more than four innings in scrimmages.
The strength of defense is up the middle with catcher Nolan Wilson, shortstop Maika Niu and center fielder Cam Harthan.
“We’re looking for a dynamic style of offense,” Beals said. “A little bit of power, a little bit of base running, and really battle with two strikes. We want to put the ball in play.”
