No. 17 Pirate Baseball Travels to Duke
April 06, 2004 | Baseball
ABOUT THE PIRATES
No. 17 East Carolina wraps up an eight-game road swing at Duke Wednesday. The Pirates swept its first Conference USA series at Charlotte over the weekend and remain ranked in the Top 25 of three of the four major collegiate baseball polls.ECU hit 10 home runs in three games at Charlotte and leads Conference USA with 48 round-trippers on the season. The Pirates have homered 20 times in nine C-USA games. Darryl and Trevor Lawhorn have hit home runs in the same game four times this season and twice in the same inning. Darryl has hit five homers in the last six games while Trevor has hit one home run in each of the last four games. Senior Ryan Jones leads ECU's hitting attack, batting .429. Of Jones' 36 hits on the season, 24 are extra-base hits, including 12 doubles, three triples and nine home runs. ECU's pitching staff leads the conference in earned run average (2.87) and strikeouts (258). Freshman right-hander Ricky Brooks (1-2, 3.92 ERA) makes his first mid-week start of the season against the Blue Devils
ABOUT THE BLUE DEVILS
Duke looks to regroup after being swept at home by Virginia last weekend, 8-1, 6-5
and 3-1. The Blue Devils' offense only produced seven runs in the three-game series
as Virginia outscored Duke, 17-7.Javier Socorro led Duke with five hits in the series and
leads the team while hitting .365 producing 12 RBI on a team-high 38 hits. Tim
Layden is Duke's power guy batting .330 with four home runs and eight doubles for 36
RBI .As a team, Duke hits .265 with 67 doubles, nine triples and nine homers. Duke's
pitching staff has put up good numbers with a 3.88 team ERA and 240 strikeouts in
290 innings. Senior right-hander Justin DiLucchio (2-0, 1.12 ERA) will start on the
mound against the Pirates.
IN THE POLLS
East Carolina enters this week ranked as high as 17th in national collegiate polls. The
Pirates are 17th by Baseball America, 22nd by the Sports Weekly/ESPN Coaches' Poll,
21st by the National Collegiate Baseball Writer's Association and 28th by Collegiate
Baseball. The Pirates are also ranked 13th among southeastern schools by
SEBaseball.com.
UP NEXT
East Carolina returns home this weekend for an important three-game set with
Conference USA foe USF. The Bulls are currently in a three-way tie for first place in
C-USA. Friday's first-pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday's game is at 6 p.m. while
Sunday's finale will be 1 p.m.
