March 22, 2010

GREENVILLE, N.C. - No. 16 East Carolina (11-8) capped off a 3-2 week with a non-conference series win over 2009 Northeast Conference Champion Monmouth at Lewis Field inside Clark-LeClair Stadium. The Pirates flexed their offensive muscles during the week pounding out 17 home runs, scoring 56 runs and batting .369 (69-for-187). Junior Devin Harris led the squad with five home runs, including one in four-straight games, while batting a team-best .524 with 12 RBI, four doubles and eight runs scored.

Mar. 22 East Carolina Baseball Notebook

National Rankings: (as of March 15, 2010)
No. 16 - Rivals.com
No. 20 - Baseball America
No. 21 - Ping!Baseball
No. 25 - NCBWA
RV - ESPN/USA Today

Current Streak: W-2

Last Week: 3-2
Mar. 16 Win vs. Gardner-Webb (8-5)
Mar. 17 Loss at High Point (13-12)
Mar. 19 Loss vs. Monmouth (11-9)
Mar. 20 Win vs. Monmouth (11-4)
Mar. 21 Win vs. Monmouth (16-2)

Upcoming Week:
Home vs. High Point (Mar. 23)
Home vs. N.C. A&T (Mar. 24)
Home vs. N.C. Central (Mar. 25-27)

Pirate Hitter-of-the-Week
Devin Harris, OF, Junior
Harris batted an impressive .524 (11-for-21) on the week with five home runs, 12 RBI, laced four doubles and slugged 1.429 (all team best) in the Pirates 3-2 week ... He recorded four multi-hit and four multi-RBI games ... Has homered in four straight games - active streak that started on Mar. 17 vs. High Point ... Belted two HRs against Monmouth in the weekend series opener (3/19) ... On the week scored eight runs ranking second behind Dustin Harrington ... Swiped 2 of 3 base attempts ... Recorded at least one hit, drove in one RBI and scored one run in all five games ... Raised his batting average 96 points to .323 with his 11 hits on the week ... Of his five round trippers, three of them where with runners on base (3-run and a pair of 2-run shots) ... Harris currently shares the team lead in home runs (six) with Kyle Roller, while also ranking first in doubles (eight) and slugging percentage (.723).

Pirate Pitcher-of-the-Week
Seth Maness, Junior, RHP
Maness picked up his third-straight win of the season improving to 3-2 on the season with his win over Monmouth ... He fanned eight batters where he allowed four runs on eight hits in 7.2 IP ... He retired the side in the second and fifth innings, while allowing one hit in both the sixth and seventh ... Maness recorded the final out in five of seven full frames via strikeout and in the eighth inning fanned the final batter faced before being lifted for Mike Anderson ... With his eight punch outs against the Hawks he pushed his career strikeout total to 196 and has walked just 41 ... On the season he has allowed 15 runs (all earned) on 35 hits in 32.0 innings with a 4.22 ERA.

PIRATE NOTES:
Dustin Harrington had a career day in the series finale against Monmouth (3/21) ... The junior shortstop was 6-for-6 with two home runs, six RBI and scored five runs - all career-highs (the most hits since Jamie Paige's seven hits against Cincinnati on 4/17/04) ... With his six-hit performance, Harrington raised his batting average from .373 to .420 in just one day ... Entering the week he was on a 22-game hit streak, which came to an end against Gardner-Webb (0-for-3 with a walk) ... Against High Point he rebounded with a 3-for-5 effort scoring three runs before collecting seven hits in the weekend series with Monmouth ... With his two multi-hit games on the week, the Taylorsville, N.C. native pushed his career total to 57 ... On the year, Harrington is batting .420 (34-for-81) with three home runs (21 career), 11 RBI, 21 runs, six doubles and is a perfect 6-for-6 on the base paths.

Kyle Roller smacked three home runs on the week to up his career total to 45, which is third all-time at ECU ... On the week he batted .316 (6-for-19) with a double, four runs scored, seven walks and nine RBI moving him into fifth place on the school's all-time RBI charts with 174 ... He has driven in at least one run in four-straight games (3/17-present) and has homered in consecutive games (3/20-21) ... Roller collected two multi-hit games (57 career) and three multi-RBI contests (50 career).

Sophomore catcher Zach Wright belted three home runs on the week including a two-HR performance against Monmouth (3/20) ... In that game he was 3-for-3 with four RBI, two runs scored (all career-highs) ... In two of the four games he played, he and Devin Harris hit back-to-back blasts ... Wright currently owns a four-game hit streak and RBI streak (3/17-present) ... On the week he posted three multi-hit games (seven career) and two-RBI contests (eight career).

Mike Wright (1-1) picked up his second career win in his third career start after working 5.1 innings with a career-best eight strikeouts against Monmouth ... Wright carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before giving up single through the right side to Mike Casale ... Before the sixth inning he faced just one over the minimum ... Wright's last win was against South Carolina in the Greenville Regional final on June 1, 2009 ... Earlier in the week he suffered the loss at High Point allowing five runs (all earned) on five hits in one inning of relief.

Reliever Seth Simmons closed out his fifth game of the season picking up the save in the Pirates 8-5 win over Gardner-Webb ... He appeared in three games working 2.2 scoreless innings where he allowed two hits ... With his lone save of the week, Simmons moved into sole possession of second place on the school's all-time saves charts with 16 and now trails ECU record holder Cory Scott by seven (23 saves) ... On the year Simmons boasts a team-best 2.13 ERA in 11 appearances ... He has surrendered just three runs (all earned) in 12.2 innings with 19 strikeouts, seven walks and 10 hits.

Head Coach Billy Godwin recorded his 172nd win as the Pirates skipper Sunday and picked up career win No. 434 ... He currently ranks fourth on the all-time wins list at ECU and needs 14 wins to move into third place passing ECU Hall of Famer Earl Smith (185).

During the week, the Pirates pitching staff allowed 35 runs (31 earned) with 51 strikeouts, 10 walks and posted a 6.34 ERA ... Offensively they batted .369 (69-for-187) with 17 home runs and 52 RBI ... Twenty-seven of ECU's 56 runs and 30 of 69 hits (.411 avg.) came with two outs ... On the season ECU has scored 48 of its 126 runs with two outs (38.1 percent).

On the weekend against Monmouth, the Pirates belted 12 home runs with four ECU players recorded multi-HR games (Jared Avchen - 3/19; Devin Harris - 3/19; Zach Wright - 3/20; Dustin Harrington - 3/21) ... Three players batted .500 during the series (Harris, Corey Thompson and Wright), while five collected five or more RBI (Harris/8; Harrington/6; Wright/6; Avchen/5 and Kyle Roller/5) ... Eight of 13 pitchers used did not allow a run, while five did not surrender a hit.