Don't sleep on the Eastern Illinois Panthers. On the last day of the regular season EIU was in a must win situation headed into their last game on the road at Eastern Kentucky. The situation was simple. Win and advance to the Ohio Valley Tournament or lose and spend the next weekend watching Indiana Jones on the big screen while the Colonels took to the diamond. The Panthers came through in a big way, mauling the Colonels in a lopsided 20-7 win to send EIU to the tourney. The Panthers kept on the prowl in Paducah and beat four different teams in four days to win the tournament title. Three of their four opponents had won the regular-season series against the Panthers.

Leading the offensive charge for EIU this season has been First Team All-OVC outfielder Brett Nommensen. Hotter than a stolen tamale, "Nommy" as he is affectionately known, batted .583 (21-of-36) in May and led the team in most major offensive categories for the season. Nommensen is batting .397 going into the NCAAs with 17 doubles, four triples and four homeruns for a handsome .588 slugging percentage. He amazingly has been hit by pitch more times than he has struck out (15 to 13) and has also added 18 stolen bases. To top things off, the junior from Fox River Grove, IL adds highlight-reel catches and throws from his centerfield position that has teammates and opponents shaking their heads in disbelief.

After learning of their impending date with the Nebraska Cornhuskers this Friday, Nommy answered a few questions from Ping!Baseball:

PING!: You’ve mentioned before that your number one sports highlight was hitting a home run at a tournament in Cooperstown, NY when you were twelve. Has anything this season supplanted the top spot in your memories?

Nommensen: That’s still one of my big highlights because Cooperstown is a place that not everyone gets to experience. There have been many moments this year. Not just for me doing well, but our pitchers as well. The biggest one I can think of right now, was seeing my good friend Ross Jeske do so well against Missouri.

PING!: The last time I went to see a game in Lincoln there was a standing room crowd of 8,000+ in red rooting on the Huskers. What was the biggest crowd EIU has played in front of this season and how do you think the capacity crowd will effect the Panthers?

Nommensen: The biggest crowd this year was against U of I. I think there was close to 2,000 people. This past summer in the Texas League there was a good amount of people when I was at the All-Star Game. But it’s going to be nothing compared to the 8,000 to 10,000 people at the Nebraska game. It’s going to be nice for us to hear the crowd, but it’ll be tough to because they’ll be getting on us all game. We need to keep our heads held high and not let the fans get to us. The atmosphere will be something new for everybody on the team and will add some adrenaline for everyone. But we’ve got to make sure we don’t get our adrenaline too high and play our game.

PING!: According to Coach Schmitz, on the last day of the season your team goal was to simply, “get back into the (OVC) tournament”. Now that you’ve not only reached and surpassed your goal, what kind of goals and expectations do you have for the Lincoln Regional?

Nommensen: We’re not just going there to say ‘we went to regionals.’ We want to prove to everyone that we’re on the map and planning on staying on the map. We would like to win a couple games. We don’t want to get to over our heads and our expected to win it. But it would nice give Nebraska a nice tough game.

PING!: The Panthers are the Ohio Valley’s lone representatives to the NCAAs, depriving a number of remarkable players like EKU’s Christian Friedrich and JSU’s Clay Whittemore the opportunity to play in front of a national audience. What other OVC’s players have impressed you during your time playing in the conference?

Nommensen: Michael Marseco (of Samford) is one of the best players I’ve ever seen play. He approaches the game the right way and he loves it. He’s a real nice guy and I got a chance to talk to him after our (OVC Tourney) game against Samford. He’s just out there playing ball and loves to play. He’s unreal in the field and at the plate.

Friedrich, I’ve known his since high school and played against him during summer ball. He’s got that attitude on the mound where he knows he want to come right at you with that fastball. He can throw it up there and command both sides. Everyone talks about his curve ball and how everyone swings and misses it because he buries it. My approach was jump on that fastball. I was lucky enough in my first two at-bats that he threw fastballs right over the plate and I was able to drive it. He’s one of the best pitchers I’ve faced in a long time. He just comes right at you and challenges you, gets you with the fastball and then will come with the breaking ball. He’s probably one of the best pitchers I’ve seen with two strikes. He puts batters away. Same with runners in scoring position. Three or four times we had men in scoring position with no outs and he responded with strikeout-strikeout-strikeout. It’s tough for a pitcher in a pressure situation like that but he knows what he’s got to do and gets it done.

PING!: After batting .309 last season, you really came into your own this season, batting .397 with 25 extra base hits and 18 stolen bases to pace the Panther offense. How did you spend your summer developing your game?

Nommensen: This summer I learned a lot about hitting, stuff I didn’t take into consideration before. This year I’m more of an aggressive hitter. I’ve learned that you need to zone in on certain pitches instead of just going up there and hitting. I zone in for the fastball and when I get it I do my best to capitalize on it. The biggest thing I learned this summer was is in certain situations when you’re ahead in the count you can go ahead and take a hack once and a while. When you’re behind it’s all about looking for a pitch you can poke and get a little base hit.

PING!: What do you like to do when you’re not playing baseball? Is there much to do in Charleston for fun?

Nommensen: When I’m not playing baseball it’s just hanging out with friends or lifting. Even when I’m not playing baseball, I’m usually out at the field doing something or goofing around with the guys. We like to go out and play softball.

PING!: What Panther pitcher would you most like to face off with in the batter’s box?

Nommensen: There are a lot of pitchers on our teams I would like to face that would be tough: [Tristan] Facer, Josh Mueller, TK [Tyler Kehrer] and all the young guys that have been coming through for us. But Muller would be the one pitcher I’d love to face off with. We goof around back and forth and he’s been my roommate [on road trips] a couple times and I always tell him ‘you wouldn’t be able to throw a fastball by me.’ That’s a little inside joke between us, so I would like to see what he’s got.

PING!: This is off topic, but something that I haven’t been able to wrap my head around and maybe you can help me out. Over the weekend I went to the store to grab a drink and headed for the Gatorade section. All that favors had names like “Rain”, “Frost” “Xtremo” and “Fierce”. Not knowing what “Xtremo” tastes like, I grabbed a water instead. Do you know what any of those drinks taste like? Whatever happened to naming a drink Orange flavor?

Nommensen: All the drinks now a days, instead of water, it will get you going and put more vitamins in. They just come up with new funky names so people might want to try it. Especially for the younger kids. I’m not a big Gatorade guy, I prefer water. Too much sugar that really isn’t necessary to play baseball.

PING!: Despite the team wins and personal milestones, I understand "Nommy’s Moment of the Year" involves a Tristan Facer batting practice homerun and an unlucky spectator who was watching you guys practice while cruising around in his car. What's that all about?

Nommensen: We were hitting BP and Facer hit a missle like 430-440 feet. We were like uh-oh, that might hit the car. The car kept on going but then out of nowhere it stopped. And right when it stopped, the ball drilled the top of the car. He got out and looked kind of pissed. If he had kept going the ball wouldn’t have hit his car. But he stopped at the perfect moment and it smoked his car. Facer hit a ball like he usually does, where it goes higher than it does far. And Boom!

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