Top Peach Belt shortstops will be on display in FMU-USC Aiken series

FLORENCE — This weekend’s Peach Belt Conference baseball series between No. 2 Francis Marion and USC Aiken won’t be short on talent.

Look no further than at shortstop to see that.

When the Patriots (12-2, 0-0 PBC) and the Pacers (9-6, 3-0) take the field for a 1 p.m. doubleheader Saturday at FMU’s Cormell Field, two of the better shortstops in the league figure to play major roles in what their teams might accomplish in the three-game series.

There are plenty of similarities between Francis Marion’s Barrett Kleinknecht and USC Aiken’s Stephen Carmon, other than the fact they play the same position.

Both have learned from fathers steeped in baseball experience and both have earned their share of accolades.

Carmon’s dad, Rich, was a member of four state championship teams when he played for Carolina Academy in Lake City from 1978-81 and went on to play in college at Newberry.

Kleinknecht’s father, Bob, played at South Carolina and later coached his son at West Florence High School.

Carmon, who played his high school ball at Camden, won the Peach Belt Conference Freshman of the Year award in 2009, which is no small feat under normal circumstances. But he was originally going to red-shirt and missed the first seven games of the year, he said, before being called into action. He hit .335 for the Pacers in 50 games.

Kleinknecht, the league’s preseason all-conference shortstop, had a big season in 2009, hitting .372 with nine home runs and 64 RBI. He made all-conference, all-region and was the Peach Belt tournament MVP.

The two don’t know each other on a buddy basis. Before they played for conference foes in college, they played a little against each other on the American Legion fields in the area. But each has certainly taken notice of his counterpart in more recent times.

“I know last year I watched Barrett a lot,” Carmon said. “I try to watch good players and try to pick up things to try to use to help me out, and he’s a great player.”

“It’s always good to see the guys you’ve played against, especially the young guys, doing well,” Kleinknecht said. “You say, ‘I played with that kid’ and you see he’s still busting his butt, trying to be the best. You’ve got to tip your hat to him for that.”

In some ways, though, the beginning of this season has been frustrating for each at times.

Kleinknecht has been solid in the field, but his batting average has dipped below .300 after a hot start.

“I’m getting myself out swinging at bad pitches, my approach isn’t very good,” Kleinknecht said. “That’s how baseball is. You go into those slumps and you have to forget about it. I need to do better forgetting about it, because I’m not doing that right now. If I have a bad at-bat, it stays in my head too long.”

For Carmon, it has been just the opposite. Through the Pacers’ first 15 games, he’s hitting .345 with a .383 on-base percentage, but has made seven errors.

“I’m comfortable in the field, but I am having some trouble with the in-between balls,” Carmon said. “It’s just something I have to work on in practice.”

One of the two shortstops might very well end up playing the hero for their team this weekend, but the importance of the series goes much deeper than that.

The Pacers were the preseason favorite, according to league coaches, to win the Peach Belt, picked just ahead of Francis Marion.

USC Aiken began the season ranked No. 6 among Division II colleges, but fell out of the poll after a 1-5 start. The Pacers have since won eight of nine, including a three-game Peach Belt sweep of Montevallo last weekend.

The Patriots lost their opener to Erskine and lost one of three games against West Chester two weekends ago, and have risen from a No. 12 preseason ranking to No. 2, behind only 14-1 Florida Southern.

And the most recent history between FMU and USC Aiken is a history the Patriots haven’t forgotten.

The Patriots won two of three regular season games in 2009 from the Pacers, but it was Aiken that eliminated FMU in the NCAA II Southeast regional in Aiken last May.

“We owe them a little something from what happened to us in the regionals,” Kleinknecht said. “We’re not going to take this series lightly, I’ll tell you that.”