Mason's inside duo is too much for Albany

By David Driver
For the The Potomac News
Used with permission

Published: November 23, 2011

FAIRFAX -- After a 66-46 loss here Tuesday night, Albany head coach Will Brown told reporters: "We are not a low-post team."

That is music to the ears of George Mason inside player Ryan Pearson and Mike Morrison, who combined for 37 points and 16 rebounds in the win over the Great Danes in the 2011 Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off consolation round before 1,384 fans at the Patriot Center.

Pearson had 13 points and four rebounds in the first half and finished with 24 points and seven boards. Morrison had 13 points and nine rebounds and guard Sherrod Wright added 12 points and seven boards. "We just came out of the gate with a lot of energy," said Morrison, whose team took a 12-0 lead as the visitors missed nine of their first 10 shots. "We really came together. We really started out real hot. It makes the game so much easier" with a big early lead.

Morrison said the Mason coaches, including former Rhode Island big man Roland Houston, have implored him not to make excuses as a rebounder. He said he can't worry about what his teammates are doing or game situations. "I know I have not been the greatest rebounder. I just have to go get the ball. I am going to continue to be aggressive," he said.

Mason held the Great Danes to just five of 28 shots from the field in the first half and just one of 12 shots from long-range. On the night the Patriots won the battle of the boards, 44-37, and made 47.5 percent of their shots. "That is the game to our game: the big guys," Wright said. "We are big and strong."

Wright said one of his fingers popped out of joint when he hit the thigh of another player. "It is always something," Morrison said, with a grin, about Wright.

Jayson Guerrier, who had 28 points in a win Monday over Monmouth, had five points against Mason. Gerardo Suero, who averaged nearly 25 points in the first three games, scored 10 points after being held scoreless in the first half. Albany was led by Logan Aronhalt, who had 15 points. Center Blake Metcalf had a game-high 12 rebounds.

Mason (4-2) held Albany to 26.2 percent from the field and the visitors had just three assists. Albany made just two of 23 shots from long-range.

Albany junior point guard Mike Black, who had nine assists Monday, had just two on Tuesday.

The first-year head coach for George Mason is Paul Hewitt, who was the head coach at Siena from 1997 to 2000. "It is nice to go into Thanksgiving with a win, I will tell you that," Hewitt said. "I am proud of our defensive effort."

"They are a very good team. They are very athletic. We just missed a lot of shots," Aronhalt said.

Pearson, who played at Christ the King in New York, entered the game with a scoring average of more than 20 points per game this season. "Probably the biggest matchup problem there is in the CAA," said Brown, the Albany head coach.

Mason freshman Corey Edwards, who made his first start at point guard Monday in a win over Brown, got the start again Tuesday and had four assists and one turnover in 24 minutes. His backup, Bryon Allen, had five points and two assists off the bench in 23 minutes.

Notes: Next up for Mason is a home game on Nov. 30 against Bucknell of the Patriot League ... Jordan Baird of Stonewall Jackson played for the second game in a row and had one rebound and one turnover in one minute for Mason as a junior guard.

Sarasota's Desmond has Bright Future in MLB

Graduate of Sarasota High prepares for his second full season with the Washington Nationals.

March 3, 2011

By David Driver
For the SarasotaPatch
Used with permission

With the arrival of the Orioles last year to Ed Smith Stadium, baseball fans in Sarasota can cheer for Baltimore during the regular-season as well. But there is another group of baseball fans in Sarasota who will root no matter what for the Washington Nationals, who play about 40 miles south of Baltimore.

While the Nationals train about three hours away in Viera, that loyalty from Sarasota fans has a lot to do with Ian Desmond. A life-long resident of Sarasota and a 2004 graduate of Sarasota High School, the young shortstop for the Nationals is just the latest in the long line of pro baseball players who have been developed by Clyde Metcalf, the high school coach since 1982.

"The way he runs the program is second to none," said Desmond, sitting by his locker in the Nationals' clubhouse in Viera prior to Wednesday's spring training game against the Florida Marlins. "And it is not only baseball. He has matured and made more men (out of teens) than any other organization in town."

Desmond said he was 12 years old when he went to a clinic that was attended by a former Sarasota High star who was then in the minor leagues. "Ever since I wanted to be a Major League player," Desmond said. Other former big league players to come out of Sarasota High include Greg Blosser, Bobby Seay and Derek Lilliquest, along with former first-round pick (Rockies, 1994) Doug Million, a promising pitcher who died of a severe asthma attack in 1997.

Desmond also said that the Sarasota High program is successful because former players come back to aid a new generation of players. "I go back to the program, people before me go back to the program. We are always giving back," Desmond said.

Desmond, 25, was drafted by the Montreal Expos (now Nationals) in the third round in 2004 out of Sarasota High. He worked his way up through the minor league system and made his debut in The Show on Sept. 10, 2009. Last year with the Nats he hit .269 with 27 doubles, 10 homers, 17 steals and 65 RBIs in 525 at bats.

How many homers can he eventually hit per year? "He has the potential to do both: hit for power and hit for average. He is a very versatile offensive player," said Rick Eckstein, the hitting coach for the Nationals.

"Ian is a special player," Ryan Zimmerman, the All-Star third baseman for the Nationals, told Patch on Wednesday. "He is one of the most athletic players I have ever seen on a baseball field. He is a leader, which is good for a shortstop. He has made big strides very quickly. He has a lot to learn. I think he will be the first one to tell you that."

Last year Desmond made 34 errors. "Everybody talks about the errors but on about 15 of those no one else could have gotten to the ball," Zimmerman noted.

"He grew tremendously last year," Eckstein said. "Physically he is a big man. He has really started to come into his own."

Desmond said he is not taking anything for granted now that he has made it to The Show. "One thing I learned from coach Metcalf and my minor league coaches, once you feel comfortable that is when things are going to turn awry," he said. "I feel I have to come in here and win a job."

Desmond lived last season in Arlington, Va., just a few minutes from Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Chelsey, are expecting their first child in early May. She is a graduate of Riverview High in Sarasota. "The city life, coming from Sarasota, which is slower paced, being in a big city is something I have to adjust to. I usually just go to my apartment and go to the field. I have not seen much of the city," he said. "I really want to establish myself first as a baseball player."

"You have to add 30 minutes on to each drive," he added about Washington. "The parking spaces are a lot smaller. I am getting used to it. It is a different up there. There is a lot more horn honking."

Coming through the minors he played in Woodbridge, Va., which has a Class A farm team in the Carolina League. Woodbridge is about 30 miles south of Washington. "That is more my speed," Desmond said of Woodbridge.

Desmond lives in Sarasota during the off-season. Now on the east side of Florida, his locker is next to Washington catcher and future Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez at Space Coast Stadium. "I am a baseball guru. I try to pick up as much as I can. I try to watch what he does," Desmond said. One of these days a new generation of players, including those from Sarastoa High, will be saying the same about Desmond.