East Carolina Baseball Notebook (Weekly Recap)
March 01, 2010 | Baseball
March 1, 2010
GREENVILLE, N.C. - No. 13 East Carolina improved to 4-3 on the season after taking a three-game non-conference series from No. 10 South Carolina over the weekend. Junior Brad Mincey returned to form in the series finale scattering three hits over seven innings with five strikeouts for his first win of the season. Corey Thompson led the way offensively pounding out seven hits and driving in six runs during the Pirates 3-1 week.
Mar. 1 East Carolina Baseball Notebook
National Ranking: (Feb. 22, 2010)
No. 13 - Rivals
No. 21 - NCBWA
No. 18 - ESPN/USA Today
No. 22 - Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, Ping!Baseball
Current Streak:: W-2
Last Week: 3-1
Feb. 23 - Win vs. ODU, 11-2
Feb. 26 - Loss vs. No. 10 South Carolina, 6-2
Feb. 27 - Win vs. No. 10 South Carolina, 4-3
Feb. 28 - Win vs. No. 10 South Carolina, 4-2
Upcoming Week:
Road vs. High Point (Mar. 2) - Postponed; makeup date TBD
Seventh Annual Keith LeClair Classic:
Home vs. Illinois (Mar. 5)
Home vs. West Virginia (Mar. 6)
Home vs. Western Carolina (Mar. 7)
Pirate Hitter of the Week
Corey Thompson, 3B, Sophomore
Thompson helped the Pirates to a 3-1 week including their first ever regular season series win over South Carolina ... On the week he led the team with a .438 (7-for-16) average, seven hits and six RBI ... He also drove in at least one run in all four games and had five in the weekend series against South Carolina ... Dating back to the series finale against then No. 2 UVA, he has collected one RBI in six-straight contests ... In Friday's game against SC, Thompson smacked his second career home run, a two-run shot to right field ... He followed that game with a game-tying RBI in the ninth inning on Saturday with a single to left ... During the rubber match game, Thompson singled down the left field line pushing across two of the Pirates three runs in the first inning recording his first career game-winning RBI ... In the field, Thompson posted a perfect fielding percentage at the hot corner with seven assists.
Pirate Pitcher of the Week
Brad Mincey, Junior, RHP
Mincey picked up his first win of the season against No. 10 South Carolina on Sunday allowing one run (unearned) in seven innings of work ... He faced 27 batters, fanned five and walked three to help the Pirates win the series ... Earlier in the week he made a relief appearance against ODU fanning two in one inning and allowing a hit ... In all, Mincey pitched eight innings, allowed one run (unearned) on four hits with seven strikeouts and three walks ... Opposing batters hit .143 against him ... He improved to 14-9 for his career.
PIRATE NOTES:
Dustin Harrington currently leads the team with a .393 (11-for-28) batting average and in hits (11) ... He extended his current hitting streak to 15 games dating back to 2009, which is tied for the 14th longest streak in school history ... During his streak, which started on May 22, 2009, he is batting .365 (23-for-63) with 10 RBI, 10 runs scored and has posted five multi-hit games ... On the week he collected six hits and scored a pair of runs ... In the series finale against South Carolina he recorded a game-best three hits and now has 51 career multi-hit games.
Trent Whitehead ranked second on the team with six hits this week and drove in the game-winning run in the win over ODU (2/23) with a single to right field in the second inning ... Against South Carolina (2/27) he singled in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth with a shot right that scored Chris Gosik from second base in ECU's ninth inning comeback on Saturday ... In all, he drove in three runs, laced two doubles and slugged .500 ... Currently he ranks second on the team with a .346 (9-for-26) average, while ranking second in hits and fourth in RBI.
Senior Kyle Roller hit a pair of home runs this week to push his career total to 41 ... Against ODU he smacked a three-run homer and was plunked twice and became the only person in school history to hit 40 home runs and to have been hit 40 times in his career ... Roller is also the only active player in college baseball to reach this feat ... He capped of his week with at two-run home run to right center on Saturday pushing across the two runs of the game ... Despite batting .231 (3-for-13), he drove in five runs ranking second behind Thompson and pushed his career total to 161, just one shy of tying Darryl Lawhorn for sixth place on the school's all-time list.
Kevin Brandt followed up his wonderful performance against then No. 2 UVa with another stellar outing against No. 10 South Carolina in the Pirates 4-3 come from behind win ... Even though he didn't get the win, the left-hander scattered five hits over 6.2 innings allowing three runs (two earned) with six punch outs and three walks ... On the season he boasts a 2.03 ERA with 10 strikeouts in 13.1 innings and has allowed four runs (three earned) ... Opposing hitters are batting .204 against him.
Reliever Seth Simmons notched his 12 career save (fourth all-time at ECU) in the finale against South Carolina ... In Saturday's game he picked up the win and improved to 6-1 all-time ... In five appearances, he sports a 0.00 ERA in 5.1 innings with eight strikeouts and three walks and has allowed just two hits ... Simmons has made 65 career relief appearances, which moved him into fifth place on the school's all-time list.
Junior Zach Woods made his first collegiate start for the Pirates against ODU in midweek action ... The Virginia Beach, Va. native struck out a career-best eight hitters while walking just one ... He scattered three hits over six innings and picked up his first win since 2008 ... Woods retired 18 of 23 batters faced, including the last eleven before being lifted for Brad Mincey ... On the season he is 1-0 with a 3.86 ERA in seven innings of work with eight punch outs.
Head Coach Billy Godwin recorded his 164th win in the series finale against South Carolina and picked up career win No. 427 ... With the series win Godwin improved to 5-3 all-time against the Gamecocks and 6-4 all-time against current members of the Southeastern Conference.
The series win over No. 10 South Carolina marks the third time since 1998 that the Pirates have won a series against a Top 10 program (No. 5 Houston/2002, No. 7 Cal State Fullerton/2007 and No. 10 South Carolina/2010) ... All three of those series were played in Greenville, N.C.
During the week, the Pirates pitching staff allowed 13 runs (eight earned) with 36 strikeouts and 11 walks while posting a 2.00 team ERA ... Offensively the Pirates batted .311 (41-for-132) with five home runs, 20 RBI ... Seven of ECU's 21 runs and 15 of its 41 hits came with two outs ... On the season ECU has scored 15 of its 40 runs with two outs (37.5 percent).
