March 8, 2010

East Carolina Baseball Notebook (Weekly Recap)

GREENVILLE, N.C. - No. 11 East Carolina improved to 7-3 on the season after claiming the 2010 Keith LeClair Classic title with a perfect 3-0 week. The Pirates got stellar pitching performances from starters Kevin Brandt and Seth Maness, while Zach Woods and Seth Simmons provided a spark out of the bullpen.

Junior Cam Freeman led the Pirates offensively with a .545 batting average and two home runs, while Devin Harris (.455/5-for-11) and Zach Wright (.400/2-for-5) hit back-to-back home runs to help ECU to a 5-4 win over in-state foe Western Carolina.

Mar. 8 East Carolina Baseball Notebook

National Ranking: (as of March 1, 2010) No. 11 - Rivals.com
No. 14 - Baseball America
No. 19 - NCBWA
No. 20 - Ping!Baseball
No. 21 - Collegiate Baseball and ESPN/USA Today

Current Streak: W-5

Last Week: 3-0
Mar. 3 vs. High Point (postponed - rescheduled for Mar. 17 at 6 p.m.; High Point, N.C.)
Mar. 5 Win vs. Illinois (7-5)
Mar. 6 Win vs. West Virginia (6-3)
Mar. 7 Win vs. Western Carolina (5-4)

Upcoming Week:
Road vs. Cal State Northridge (Mar. 10)
Road vs. Pepperdine (Mar. 11-13)

Pirate Hitter-of-the-Week

Cam Freeman, 2B, Junior
Freeman helped the Pirates to a perfect 3-0 week which included capturing the Seventh Annual Keith LeClair Classic crown ... On the week he led the team in average (.542/6-for-11), home runs (2), RBI (6) and total bases (12), while sharing the team lead in runs (3), hits (6) and on-base percentage (.500) ... Three of his six RBI came with two outs (Illinois/1 and WVA/2) ... He also slugged a team second-best 1.091 ... Drove in game-winning runs against West Virginia (2 RBI single in third) and Western Carolina (2-run HR in eighth), the first of his career ... Collected two hits and drove in two runs in all three games of the Keith LeClair Classic ... Hit home runs against Illinois and Western Carolina ... On the season is currently batting .400 (14-for-35) with two home runs, seven RBI and six runs scored ... Has recorded at least one hit in nine of 10 games played with five multi-hit games.

Pirate Pitcher-of-the-Week
Zach Woods, Junior, RHP
Woods made two relief appearances on the week working eight shutout innings where he struck out 14, walked one and allowed three hits ... Against Illinois he worked one inning striking out the side looking throwing 13 pitches ... He followed that with a seven inning shutout relief appearance against West Virginia where he faced 25 batters, fanned a career-best 11, walked one and allowed three hits ... From the fourth inning on against the Mountaineers, he retired two over the minimum and struck out seven of nine batters faced in innings five through seven ... Opposing batters hit .115 against him ... On the season he is 2-0 in four appearances (one start) with 22 strikeouts and two walks ... He has allowed just three runs (all earned) in 15.0 innings and boasts an impressive 1.80 ERA.

PIRATE NOTES:
Dustin Harrington extended his current hitting streak to 18 games dating back to 2009, which ties his personal-best streak set from 5/30/08 to 3/13/09 ... It also is tied for the sixth longest streak in school history ... He currently leads the team with a .415 (17-for-41) average, while also leading in hits, doubles (5) and runs scored (9) ... On the week he batted .462 (6-for-13) with four doubles, three runs scored and collected a pair of multi-hit games.

Devin Harris smacked his first home run in the LeClair finale against Western Carolina ... The solo shot was the 15th of his career and tied the game at two in the bottom of the seventh inning ... He batted .455 (5-for-11) with two doubles, three runs scored and posted a .500 on-base percentage.

Reliever Seth Simmons recorded a pair of saves on the weekend to push his season total to three and career total to 14, which is tied for third place on the school's all-time charts with Shane Mathews (2004-07) ... The right-hander struck out three in 2.2 innings allowing three runs on four hits.

Kevin Brandt had another superb outing in the LeClair Classic opener against Illinois tossing six strong innings allowing one run on five hits with a season-best seven strikeouts ... In three starts, Brandt has allowed five runs (four earned) on 15 hits in 19.1 innings ... He has fanned a team second-best 18 while walking eight ... Opposing hitters are batting .214 against him.

Seth Maness picked up his first win of the season against in-state foe Western Carolina ... The preseason first-team All C-USA selection worked a season-best 7.1 innings allowing two runs (both earned) on eight hits with a season-best seven strikeouts ... After allowing two runs in the third inning, Maness settled down retiring nine of his next 10 batters ... On the season he is 1-2 with a 4.67 ERA in three starts ... He has struck out 13 batters while walking just two ... He improved his career record to 19-7 in 37 appearances.

Head Coach Billy Godwin recorded his 168th win in the LeClair finale against Western Carolina and picked up career win No. 430 ... Since taking over as the skipper at East Carolina, Godwin has posted an 11-3 overall record in the LeClair Classic which has included three tournament titles (2007, 2008 and 2010).

During the week, the Pirates pitching staff allowed 12 runs (all earned) with 34 strikeouts to just six walks while posting a 4.00 ERA ... Offensively the Pirates batted .323 (32-for-99) with four home runs and 18 RBI ... Four of ECU's 18 runs and nine of 32 hits came with two outs ... On the season ECU has scored 19 of its 58 runs with two outs (32.8 percent) ... ECU collected double-digit hits in all three games over the weekend and in 7 of 10 games played.