Feb. 18, 2010

Gameday Central | Complete Game Notes In PDF Form

GREENVILLE, N.C. - The East Carolina softball team returns to the state of Florida for this weekend's Lipton Invitational in Gainesville. The Pirates open the event playing Conference USA foe Marshall at 9:00 a.m. Friday before squaring off against in-state rival Campbell later in the morning at 11:15. The contest against the Thundering Herd will not count toward this season’s C-USA standings.

Saturday, ECU will face No. 3 Florida at 2:30 p.m. and Kansas at 7:00 before completing the weekend against the Gators at 12:15 p.m. Sunday.

The Pirates began the 2010 campaign going 1-3 at the USF DeMarini Tournament in Clearwater, Fla. After rain forced schedule changes, ECU opened with No. 3 Florida and suffered a 4-3 setback Saturday morning. That night, the Pirates defeated host USF 5-1. In Sunday’s doubleheader, East Carolina lost 3-0 to No. 13 Georgia Tech and 2-1 to Long Island.

The Pirates Against The Thundering Herd ...
Marshall leads the all-time series with East Carolina 9-7. The Thundering Herd claimed six of the first nine meetings, but the Pirates have won three of the past four.

A year ago, ECU traveled to Huntington and took two of three in the Conference USA series. In the opener, Marshall’s Rachael Sofie hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the seventh after the Pirates had forced a 1-1 tie in the top of the inning. Game two had East Carolina use a five-run fourth inning to cruise to an 8-3 victory as Jessica Johnson drove in four. The finale featured another game-changing inning as the visitors trailed 1-0 until scoring three in the fifth to win 3-1. Cristen Aona had the deciding hit as she plated two with a single to left field.

Despite both teams being C-USA members, Friday’s matchup will not count toward this season’s league standings. The programs are no strangers to playing non-conference contests, however, as Marshall did not join Conference USA until 2006.

East Carolina Versus Campbell ...
The Pirates own a 33-10 advantage against the Camels, with the teams meeting at least once a year from 1990-2002. The programs also played doubleheaders in 2005, 2006 and 2008 before facing each other in a single game last season.

In that contest, Campbell took a 1-0 lead in the top of the sixth as Katie Hinton doubled in Lizzie Goldbach. The Pirates answered with a run in the bottom of the inning when Christina Merrida drove in Aona. With the game still tied in the top of the eighth, Hinton sent a double to right center to plate Katie Woodcock for a 2-1 lead. A sacrifice fly by Sarah Bibee tied the score at two each in the bottom of the eighth before Kaui Tom delivered a walk-off, two-out, three-run home run for the win.

575 And Counting ...
With the team’s 5-1 victory against USF last Saturday night, head coach Tracey Kee recorded her 575th victory as the Pirates’ leader. Her squads have won 40 games or more in five of the past six and 10 of the past 13 seasons, and have tallied at least 50 triumphs four times. Her 575 victories are 146 more than ECU’s current baseball, football, soccer, volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball coaches have totaled with the Pirates.

Since East Carolina began fastpitch softball in 1984, the Pirates have recorded 972 victories, with Kee being a part of 893 of those wins as a player, assistant coach and head coach.

What Can Brown Do For You? ...
Senior Marina Gusman-Brown began the season with a four-game hitting streak during which she batted a team-best .583 and slugged .833. Of the nine runs ECU scored during last weekend’s four contests, Gusman-Brown scored or drove in five of them.

In the season opener against No. 3 Florida, she had two RBI with a fifth-inning double that brought the Pirates to within one run at 4-3. Later that day, her three stolen bases against USF made her the first Pirate to swipe three in a game since Krista Jessup against Delaware March 14, 2006. Sunday against No. 13 Georgia Tech, Gusman-Brown broke up the Yellow Jackets’ no-hit bid with a seventh-inning single. She also drove in the only run the Pirates scored in Sunday’s finale against Long Island with her second career triple in the sixth inning.

Gusman-Brown carried over a four-game hitting streak from the end of the 2009 season, giving her a career-best eight-straight games with at least one hit.