Houston to face ECU in the C-USA Baseball Tournament

CUSA Fans Houston Cougars sports correspondent Allen Rassenfoss provides us with his latest update on the 2008 UH Cougars baseball team.

Coming off this past weekend’s sweep of the Marshall Thundering Herd, the Coogs are in a much more ideal position than they were a week ago. Although things will not be a cake walk in the CUSA tourney against the East Carolina Pirates.

The Coogs clinched the #4 seed in the tourney after this past weekend.

Head to head this season the Coogs have a 2-1 record against the Pirates and those may be the team’s most impressive wins. The Pirates have arguably the best home field advantage of all the CUSA teams at Clark-LeClair Stadium or “The Jungle” as it’s better known.

But there won’t be any advantages for either team as tomorrow’s game will be played on a neutral field: Turchin Stadium on the campus of Tulane Univeristy.

The Pirates are about as tough of a hitting team as there is and the Coogs need to bring their ‘A’ game to keep their bats in check. As a team the Pirates have a .319 batting average which is the best in C-USA.

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The conference player of the year, senior C/3B Corey Kemp has a .358 batting average, 15 homers and 66 RBI. The Pirates’ leader in batting average, senior OF Harrison Eldridge (.366, 4 HR, 32 RBI) is more of a slap hitter than the powerful Kemp. Eldrige also has a very impressive 32 stolen bases in 36 attempts. Also, junior OF Brandon Henderson (.352, 9 HR, 46 RBI), junior OF/IF Stephen Batts (.340, 10 HR, 45 RBI) and senior OF Jamie Ray (.335, 4 HR, 42 RBI) are potent hitters.

While the team may win a lot of games with their bats, the ECU pitchers aren’t slouches. The CUSA Freshman of the Year (Seth Maness) and Newcomer of the Year (Justin Bristow) both come from the Pirates’ pitching staff. The sensational freshman Maness has a 9-1 record and a 2.79 ERA in 84.0 innings with 77 strike outs.

The Coogs will start sophomore southpaw Wes Musick (8-4, 4.15 ERA in 82.1 innings) tomorrow morning. Even with the sweep of Marshall, the Coogs would ideally get 2 wins and assure themselves a trip to the postseason. The last time the boys in red and white faced Maness, they struggled in a 15-4 loss back on March 22 nd.

The ECU/UH match-up will start bright and early at 9 am central time.

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By Allen Rassenfoss -
CUSA-fans.com Houston Correspondent