It has become a tradition for East Carolina baseball.

The third weekend of the season is the time for the Keith LeClair Classic, honoring the memory of the former Pirates coach who died in 2006 at the age of 40 after a battle with ALS.

The event began in 2004.

The field for the round robin format this season includes Rutgers, Troy and Western Carolina, LeClair’s alma mater.

The Catamounts are scheduled to open the Classic against Troy on Friday at noon. The forecast had a high percentage chance of rain on Friday morning, which potentially could delay the first pitch.

Keith LeClair

LeClair coached five seasons at ECU from 1998 to 2002 with a record of 212-96-1, a .688 winning percentage.

His goal was for the program to make it to Omaha for the College World Series.

He watched the championship of the 2002 Conference USA tournament at Grainger Stadium in Kinston from a van parked down the right field line due to his illness.

The Pirate players doused the van with the contents of a water cooler after defeating Houston, 4-0, for the league title.

LeClair, a native of New Hampshire, was part of four consecutive Southern Conference championship teams at Western Carolina, beginning in 1985. He was MVP of the Southern Conference tournament in 1988.

He was drafted by Atlanta and returned to Western after a brief pro career. He was coach of the Catamounts from 1992 to 1997, winning three Southern Conference championships and compiling a record of  228-135-2.

His Pirate teams made four NCAA Tournament appearances and played in a Super Regional in Kinston against Tennessee in 2001, the senior season of current ECU coach Cliff Godwin.

Rutgers

The Scarlet Knights (4-3) are scheduled to be the opening KLC opponent for the Pirates (4-4-1) on Friday at 4:30 p.m. at Clark-LeClair Stadium.

Rutgers took three of four in a season-opening series at Charleston, the team ECU topped 8-7 in Fayetteville on Wednesday night. Host Virginia Tech won two of three against the Knights, who were 29-28 in 2025 with a 15-15 mark in the Big Ten.

Rutgers comes in with a .337 team batting average. Players hitting .400 or better include junior Peyton Bonds, the nephew of Barry Bonds. He played his freshman season at Campbell and is currently hitting .441.

Yomar Carreras has a .429 average. Ryan Jaros is connecting at a .423 rate. Charlie Meglio, another Campbell transfer, is hitting .400 with a team-high 11 RBIs.

Graduate lefty Joe Mazza started the season opener at Charleston and came out of the pen for three and one-innings with six whiffs in a 16-1 win at Virginia Tech last Friday.

Troy

The Trojans (4-4) are coming to Greenville after a 6-5 win in 12 innings on Tuesday at No. 8 Georgia.

Troy was ranked as high as No. 14 during a 39-21 season in 2025.

Former South Carolina pitching coach Skylar Meade is in his fifth season directing the Trojans.

Central Michigan transfer Aaron Piasecki is hitting .481 for Troy.

Catcher Jimmy Janicki is at .400 with a pair of homers.

The Trojans were 2-1 at home against Campbell last weekend with sophomore Noah Thigpen making the Saturday start in a 13-3 loss to the Camels.

ECU is scheduled to play Troy on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.

Western Carolina

The Catamounts, 6-2 as they come to Greenville, will play the Pirates on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. in the KLC finale.

Western swept three games with George Washington, 3-0, to start the season and took two of three from Bowling Green. They downed Akron, 12-2, in eight innings on Tuesday.

The outlier thus far was a 17-0 loss at South Carolina Upstate as the Spartans scored 13 runs in the second inning on Feb. 17.

Hitting leaders include Noah Quarless (.529), Wyatt Stanley (.440) and Jackson Lyda (.429). Quarless and Stanley have each hit a pair of home runs.

Freshman southpaw Evan Myers has started the third game of each weekend series thus far. He is 1-0 with a 1.00 earned run average. He has 10 strikeouts in nine innings pitched.

Last year

In the LeClair Classic in 2025, the Pirates lost their opener, 7-6, to Kent State.

ECU bounced back with a 13-1 triumph over Indiana State in seven innings as John Collins and Austin Irby had homers. Sean Jenkins pitched six innings with six strikeouts for the win.

The Pirates closed with a 6-1 win over Virginia Tech as Alex Bouche homered and Ethan Young got the win in relief with six whiffs in three and one-third innings.

ECU, the Hokies and Kent State each went 2-1 in the event last season.

LeClair’s impact

The Pirates played in a regional at LSU in 1999 as a No. 1 seed because their baseball facility at the time wasn’t deemed suitable to host by the NCAA.

That prompted a push to build Clark-LeClair Stadium.

“A lot of the foundation that we have here is because of what Coach LeClair and the staff he ran and the teams that he coached were able to build,” Coach Godwin said in 2024. “I mean it’s amazing what the facility has come to be compared to where I played at Harrington Field.”