Friday, Jan. 29, 2010

Area sports popular year-round

The mild climate of the Grand Strand allows both indoor and outdoor sports to serve as an enjoyable entertainment option throughout the year.

This winter, Division I basketball and baseball at Conway's Coastal Carolina University, the Myrtle Beach Marathon and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a minor league baseball team, are your best options.

Coastal Carolina's men's basketball team opened the 2009-10 season by accumulating the best record to open a campaign in school and Big South Conference history. Led by senior forward Joseph Harris, one of the nation's most accomplished small-school players, and South Carolina transfer Chad Gray, the Chanticleers could make their first appearance in the NCAA tournament since 1993.

To do that, they'll need to win the Big South tournament, an event that brings together the league's top-eight finishers in the regular-season standings. If Coastal wins the regular season conference championship, the Chants will play all their conference tournament games at on-campus Kimbel Arena. Coastal is also assured of hosting both tournament semifinals if it wins the regular season.

Even if the Chants fail to win the Big South tournament and earn their third NCAA tournament bid, they can still earn an invite to one of several other NCAA-sanctioned postseason tournaments, including the NIT.

Coastal baseball, which will open the season ranked in the top 25 of several national polls, begins its season on Feb. 19 with a home game against West Virginia. The Chants play 16 of their first 17 games either at on-campus Watson Stadium or at Myrtle Beach's BB&T Coastal Field, a span that includes games against Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Wake Forest, UC Irvine, N.C. State, Pittsburgh, Michigan and Illinois.

The Baseball at the Beach tournament, which Coastal hosts at BB&T Coastal Field, includes national power UC Irvine, N.C. State, James Madison and the hosts. The event, which is held Feb. 25-28, will include seven games.

BB&T Coastal Field will also serve as the epicenter of the Myrtle Beach Marathon, an event that grows with each passing year. The three-day event (Feb. 12-14) includes a 5K and family fun run on Friday evening, the full and half marathons on Saturday morning and bicycle rides on Sunday morning. In 2007, USA Today named the event one of the 10 best winter marathons in the nation. The event is expected to include more than 10,000 participants in 2010. The half and full marathons were sold out by early January.

The Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a high, Single-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, will open their season on April 8 against the Wilmington Blue Rocks, who play four games at BB&T Coastal Field on opening weekend. The Pelicans, which opened play on the Grand Strand in 1999, established the two highest single-season attendance figures in franchise history in 2008 and 2009.