Houston sits atop the Conference USA baseball standings after sweeping a three-game series from No. 25 UCF at Cougar Field. UH is just ahead of Rice, which swept a three-game series at Memphis. East Carolina won two-of-three at Southern Miss, while Marshall and Tulane each won one game before tying on Sunday.

Houston’s first league sweep since 2006 was aided by second baseman Ryan Lormand, who went 7-for-12 in the series. Saturday’s middle game saw a strong pitching performance by Ty Stuckey. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Conference USA, East Carolina, Houston, Marshall, Presbyterian College, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane, UAB

From Conference USA release:

It was quite a week for the East Carolina Pirates. After opening a five-game schedule with a wild 20-13 win at Old Dominion, ECU picked up a road win at Virginia Commonwealth and then returned home for the annual Keith LeClair Classic. Bad weather forced Friday’s games to be cancelled, setting up a Saturday doubleheader. The Pirates responded, defeating Pittsburgh in the first game and then knocking off No. 15 Michigan, 6-5, in the second game. On Sunday, ECU downed an always-tough Georgia Southern team, 9-3, to capture the tournament title. Brandon Henderson batted .556 (5-for-9) in the tournament, while Ryan Wood extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Conference USA, East Carolina, Houston, Marshall, Memphis, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane, UAB, UCF

We will be providing Daily Recaps on Conference USA throughout the season. All the recaps are excerpts from the Press Releases. Click on the respective schools link at the bottom of the recap for the full release.

Southern Miss 6 Lipscomb 3

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Southern Miss hitters started cold but rallied to overcome a early 3-0 deficit to win 6-3 Saturday evening in front of 3,322 fans at Pete Taylor Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Atlantic Sun, Big Ten, Big West, Conference USA, Conference USA Recap, East Carolina, FAMU, Horizon League, Houston, Lipscomb, Marshall, MEAC, Memphis, Ohio State, Pacific, SEC, South Carolina, Southern Conference, Southern Miss, Tulane, UAB, UIC, Western Carolina

Due to the NCAA’s common start date rule, the baseball season is getting underway a couple of weeks later this year, but opening day has nearly arrived. All nine C-USA baseball teams will be in action this Friday. Tulane will play its first games on campus since the 2006 NCAA Super Regional when it opens the brand-new Greer Field at Turchin Stadium against Illinois-Chicago. Two of C-USA’s nationally-ranked teams open with three-game series’ at ranked opponents, as No. 24 East Carolina visits No. 2 South Carolina and No. 3 Rice travels to No. 13 Long Beach State. Houston, Southern Miss, UAB and UCF each host weekend series.

Team-by-team thumbnails

Tags: Conference USA, East Carolina, Houston, Marshall, Memphis, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane, UAB, UCF

FROM CONFERENCE PRESS RELEASE
Coming off a second straight trip to the College World Series, Rice has been selected as the preseason favorite in the 2008 Conference USA baseball poll, chosen by the league’s nine head coaches. Owls junior outfielder/designated hitter Aaron Luna, a preseason All-American, is the Preseason C-USA Player of the Year. Rice hurler Ryan Berry, a national Freshman of the Year selection by Collegiate Baseball last season, was named as the league’s preseason Pitcher of the Year. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2008 Conference Preview, Conference USA, East Carolina, Houston, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane

We are continuing our coverage of the Recruiting classes for the 2008-2009 season. You can read about each school below.

Memphis
Maine
UAB
East Carolina
Santa Clara
Illinois State
Xavier
Miami (OH)

Tags: East Carolina, Illinois State, Maine, Memphis, Miami (OH), Santa Clara, UAB, Xavier

Many different college baseball teams are in the midst of their fall ball schedule. We have provided links to each school’s recap for games that took place on October 10th.

East Carolina

Devin Harris hit two homers and went 3-3 while pitcher Seth Maness pitched five shutout innings to lead the Purple team to an 8-0 victory in Game 1 of the Fall World Series.

North Carolina

Dustin Ackley drove in two runs and Garrett Davis pitched five innings while allowing only three hits as the Sox Slayers knocked off the Carolina Blue Sox to even the intrasquad scrimmage at a game a piece.

Michigan State

Kyle Hortt scored on a suicide squeeze bunt by Justin Potes to lead the White team to a 1-0 victory in Game 1 of the Fall World Series.

Tags: ACC, Big Ten, East Carolina, Michigan State, UNC

The College Baseball Blog has come across some more 2008 Baseball Schedules. The schedules are linked below.

Dayton
East Carolina
Ohio
Columbia
Miami (OH)
Hawaii-Hilo

Tags: Atlantic 10, Columbia, Dayton, East Carolina, Hawaii-Hilo, Ivy League, MAC, Miami (OH), Ohio University

Josh Dowdy of East Carolina has been dismissed from the baseball program according to a press release put out on Saturday. He earned a spot in the rotation in 2007 where he posted a 5-2 record with a 3.62 ERA. The full release is available here.

Tags: Dismissed, East Carolina

The Bourne Braves and Falmouth Commodores are set to do battle in the Western Division playoffs in the Cape Cod Baseball League.

The Falmouth Commodores head over to Bourne to take on the Braves. Falmouth is led by Conor Gillaspie (Wichita State) who led the league in hitting at a .345 clip. He also has seven homers with 22 RBI on the year. David Adams (UVA) hit a solid .302 while Matthew Hague (Clemson) hit .299. Falmouth has the best two pitchers in the league based on ERA with Aaron Crow and Kyle Gibson who both play with the Missouri Tigers. Crow has a 0.67 ERA in 40 innings and a 3-1 record. (Video of Crow is available here) Gibson has a 2-0 record with a 1.17 ERA.

The Bourne Braves have fought through the 2007 season by overcoming losses of players during the season and before the season for various reasons to have the second best record in the league after Yarmouth-Dennis. Bourne is led by Kevin Hoef (Iowa) at the plate with his .317 average. T.J. Hose (East Carolina) is the top pitcher on the team with a 4-3 record with a 2.58 ERA.

Friday: Falmouth at Bourne 3 pm
Saturday: Bourne at Falmouth 8 pm
Sunday (if necessary): Falmouth at Bourne 3 pm

The College Baseball Blog predicts that Falmouth wins the series in three games in a mild upset.

The entire playoffs will be webcasted for free through Leaguestream. The games can be accessed by clicking here.

Tags: Cape Cod League, East Carolina, Iowa, Missouri, UVA, Wichita State

The Cape Cod Baseball League has announced their players of the week for the week ending on June 29th. The league named Bourne pitcher T.J. Hose (East Carolina) the Coca-Cola Pitcher of the Week after pitching eight innings without allowing an earned run. Brian Pruitt (Stetson) also of Bourne was named the Coca-Cola Player of the Week after hitting .412 last week. The full press release from the Cape Cod League is available by clicking here.

Tags: Cape Cod League, East Carolina, Stetson

Western Carolina 9 East Carolina 5

The Catamounts picked up a 9-5 victory over intrastate rivals East Carolina to stay alive in the NCAA Tournament. John Ingram went 3-4 with a homer and a triple while driving in three runs. Western Carolina advances to the Championship game of the regional which will take place on Monday against North Carolina. The game was originally scheduled to be played Sunday evening but was postponed until Monday. If WCU wins in the opener, they will play UNC in a second game. East Carolina finishes the season with a 40-23 record.

Western Carolina Recap
East Carolina Recap

Tags: ACC, East Carolina, NCAA Tourney, UNC, Western Carolina

Western Carolina 7 Jacksonville 0

The Catamounts picked up a 7-0 victory over the Jacksonville Dolphins. Drew Saberhagen pitched eight strong innings while allowing seven hits without allowing a run to up his record to 9-1. The offensive leader for the Catamounts was Steven Strasbaugh who went 3-5 with an RBI. Jacksonville ends the season with a 34-28 record while WCU will take on East Carolina in an elimination game.

Western Carolina Recap
Jacksonville Recap

UNC 11 East Carolina 10

North Carolina scored three runs in the bottom of ninth to get an 11-10 victory over intrastate rival East Carolina. Dustin Ackley hit a single up the middle with one out in the ninth to drive in Reid Fronk with the winning run. North Carolina reliever Rob Wooten pitched a scoreless top of the ninth as he picked up the win to up his record to 4-1. UNC will take on the winner of the elimination game between Western Carolina and East Carolina on Sunday.

UNC Recap
East Carolina Recap

Tags: ACC, East Carolina, Jacksonville, NCAA Tourney, UNC, Western Carolina

East Carolina 9 Western Carolina 8

The East Carolina Pirates got a bases loaded single in the bottom of the eighth inning by Jamie Ray to drive home the winning run as the Pirates picked up a 9-8 victory over Western Carolina. East Carolina advances in the winning bracket to take on North Carolina on Saturday. Western Carolina will take on Jacksonville in an elimination game on Saturday.

ECU Recap
WCU Recap

North Carolina 6 Jacksonville 0

Robert Woodard threw eight shutout innings while scattering seven hits as he shutdown the Jacksonville offense in a 6-0 victory. The Carolina offense was led by Tim Federowicz who went 3-4 with 2 RBI. They advance in the winners bracket to take on East Carolina while Jacksonville will take on Western Carolina.

UNC Recap
Jacksonville Recap

Tags: ACC, East Carolina, Jacksonville, NCAA Tourney, UNC, Western Carolina

The University of North Carolina is hosting the NCAA Regional this weekend at Boshamer Stadium. The three other schools who will be playing in the regional are Western Carolina, East Carolina, and Jacksonville.

North Carolina

The North Carolina Tar Heels (48-12) went undefeated at the ACC Tournament on their way to the ACC Tournament Championship. They are led by Freshman All-American Dustin Ackley who has a .437 average. Josh Horton also provides strong defense and a potent bat in the lineup as he has a .329 average in 60 games. Robert Woodard with a 9-2 record and a 3.29 average. The CBB did check out the Tar Heels this season which can be read by clicking here. They open the tournament on Friday when they play Jacksonville at 6:00 pm.

UNC Tourney Notes

East Carolina

The East Carolina Pirates (39-21) head up the road to Chapel Hill to open up their NCAA Tournament against Western Carolina on Friday at 2 pm. ECU went to the Conference USA championship game but lost to Rice 16-8. They are led by Dale Mollenhauer who leads the team with a .329 average. Josh Dowdy is the top starting pitcher with a 5-1 record in twelve starts.

East Carolina Tourney Notes

Western Carolina

The Western Carolina Catamounts (40-18) enter this weekend coming off the Southern Conference Tournament in which they were eliminated after two games after losing to Georgia Southern and The Citadel. Western Carolina’s top hitter is Kenny Smith who is hitting .396 on the season in 58 games. Drew Saberhagen leads the team with an 8-1 record and a 3.10 ERA. He is the son of former MLB pitcher Brett Saberhagen. They open the tournament against East Carolina on Friday at 2 pm.

Western Carolina Tourney Notes

Jacksonville

The Jacksonville Dolphins enter this weekend with a 34-26 overall record after winning the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament to get into the NCAA Regional. The Dolphins are led by Pete Clifford who leads the team with a .359 average and in homers with 14. Justin Young has the lowest ERA of the starters at 3.33 but only has a record of 5-5. They will open up against North Carolina at 6 pm on Friday.

Jacksonville Tourney Notes

The CBB predicts UNC to win the regional with East Carolina being the sleeper team from Conference USA.

Tags: ACC, East Carolina, Jacksonville, NCAA Tourney, UNC, Western Carolina