May 11, 2010

IRVING, Texas – For the second consecutive season, the East Carolina softball team took home two of the top honors in Conference USA. Head coach Tracey Kee repeated as the league’s coach-of-the-year while junior Toni Paisley received her second-straight C-USA Pitcher-of-the-Year award. Joining Paisley on the C-USA First Team was senior Marina Gusman-Brown. Classmate Charina Sumner was selected to the league’s second team.

Kee guided the Pirates to their first-ever Conference USA regular season championship. East Carolina enters the conference tournament with a 39-16 overall record and a 16-5 mark in league play. The five C-USA losses matched the 2009 squad for fewest ever for ECU in a year. Earlier this season, Kee passed the 600-victory plateau with a pair of wins over UTEP.

Paisley repeated as the league’s top pitcher after she was voted the 2010 Preseason Conference USA Pitcher-of-the-Year. Seven times this season, she was selected as the league’s pitcher-of-the-week, tying her own record from last season that she shares with Southern Miss’ Courtney Blades (2000). Paisley has a 27-9 record and 1.05 earned run average while leading the NCAA in shutouts with 19. She has also struck out 320 batters, just 18 shy of the ECU single-season record. She finished league play with a 0.52 ERA, surrendering only eight earned runs in 107.2 innings pitched.

Gusman-Brown and Sumner have led East Carolina’s offense in 2010. Gusman-Brown has team-best marks in batting average (.331), home runs (12), runs batted in (36), slugging percentage (.656) and stolen bases (27). The 12 home runs are tied for the fifth most in a season in Pirate history and tie her for third this year in the C-USA ranks. She paces ECU with nine multiple-RBI games, including five game-winners, and has a squad second-best 12 multi-hit performances. The selection is the first of Gusman-Brown’s career.

Sumner has East Carolina highs in hits (57), doubles (10), triples (5) and runs scored (33) while sitting second in batting average (.328), slugging percentage (.477) and walks (19). In C-USA contests, she leads the Pirates with a .284 batting average and 19 hits. She has produced a team-best 14 multiple-hit games and trails only Gusman-Brown with seven multi-RBI contests. The second-team selection for Sumner is the second of her career, as she was also named to the squad as a freshman.

East Carolina returns to action Thursday in the first round of the Conference USA Tournament. The Pirates enter as the top seed and play eighth-seeded Southern Miss at 5:30 p.m. at the Cougar Softball Stadium in Houston.

2010 All-Conference USA Teams
First Team
C – Mandy Lowman, UAB
IF – Camilla Carrera, UTEP
IF – Kayla Orr, UAB
IF – Natalie Land, UCF
IF – Tiffany Lane, UCF
IF – Vanessa Vice, Tulsa
OF – Marina Gusman-Brown, East Carolina
OF – Martina Landrum, UAB
OF – Lauren Lindsay, Tulsa
UT – Stacie Townsend, UTEP
P – Ashleigh Cole, UCF
P – Toni Paisley, East Carolina

Second Team
C – Abby McClain, UCF
IF – Hillary Barrow, UCF
IF – Samantha Cobb, Tulsa
IF – Charina Sumner, East Carolina
IF – Jazmine Valle, Marshall
OF – Lelani Bernardino, Memphis
OF – Caitlin Everett, Tulsa
OF – Megan Hill, Southern Miss
UT – Reina Gaber, Houston
UT – Vanessa Walle, Memphis
P – Alisha Smith, UAB
P – Lauren Webster, UAB

All-Freshman Team
Kate Armstrong, UAB
Samantha Cobb, Tulsa
Caitlin Everett, Tulsa
Reina Gaber, Houston
Carly Hummel, Memphis
Ashleigh Jones, Houston
Gabby Luciani, Southern Miss
Marissa Menendez, UCF
Jazmine Valle, Marshall
Bailey Watts, Houston
Lauren Webster, UAB

Coach-of-the-Year
Tracey Kee, East Carolina

Player-of-the-Year
Lauren Lindsay, Tulsa

Pitcher-of-the-Year
Toni Paisley, East Carolina

Freshman-of-the-Year
Lauren Webster, UAB

Newcomer-of-the-Year
Alisha Smith, UAB

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