Sophomore right-hander Josh Conway has been Coastal Carolina's best starting pitcher so far this season, and now the Chanticleers will see if he can be their best reliever.
CCU coach Gary Gilmore revealed Monday that he is moving Conway to the back of the bullpen to hopefully steady the Chants' late-inning woes. Coastal lost two one-run games at UNC Asheville last weekend, one on a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth inning and the other in 12 innings after leading going into the ninth and later building a two-run lead in the top of the 11th.
"I don't have any choice," Gilmore said of moving Conway to a relief role. "Confidence comes from winnning late-inning games, and we have a good bullpen, but we don't have that presence down there. He gives us a presence. And if he isn't the guy, then I'm going to flip-flop him and [Anthony] Meo.
"We have got to have somebody that can finish off two games on a weekend that when we give them the ball, the game's over. And both of those guys have the ability to do that."
Conway had just been moved into the weekend rotation last Sunday and has a 4-0 record and 1.44 earned-run average through 31 1/3 innings. He also picked up a save last week at The Citadel. Perhaps most impressive is his 36-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
"He started Sunday, and we lost because we couldn't finish the game off," Gilmore said. "It doesn't do me any good to pitch him six innings and we can't put it away or do whatever. We did that all last year. [Austin] Fleet closed, started, we fought that piece all year long. We're going to probably have to pitch some young guys in mid-week, and that's fine. I mean, we just have to survive. Right now, we need to win our league."
| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com
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