Roller Picks Up National Honor
March 24, 2009 | Baseball
March 24, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - East Carolina’s Kyle Roller continued to pile up awards after batting .591 last week and leading the Pirates to a perfect 5-0 mark. The junior designated hitter has been selected as The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCWBA) Pro-Line Athletic National Player-of-the-Week, according to an announcement by the association on Tuesday afternoon.
Roller is the first ECU player to earn national weekly honors from the NCBWA since Ricky Brooks garnered the distinction on April 25, 2005.
Roller, who was named Conference USA’s Hitter-of-the-Week Monday, batted .591 (13-for-22) and added four home runs, 15 RBI, two walks, one strikeout and five hit by pitches. He hit three homers in the Pirates’ sweep of C-USA foe UCF, including two during Friday night’s series opener. The Rockingham, N.C., native scored 11 runs during the week and tied his career high by scoring four times against the Knights on Friday. Roller also recorded a career-high five hits with two round-trippers and five RBI in Friday’s contest.
Over the five games last week, Roller posted four multi-hit and multi-RBI contests. He also helped ECU establish school and conference records for runs scored in consecutive games (52) and school records for five-game scoring (90) and five-game hitting (98).
Roller and the Pirates (16-4, 3-0 C-USA) will try to extend their winning streak to seven games when they face Campbell tonight at 6:30.
The NCWBA also named junior right-handed pitcher Stephen Strasburg of San Diego State as the National Pitcher-of-the-Week.
