East Carolina freshman Toni
Paisley has been named Conference USA pitcher of the week in softball
for the period ending April 22 after recording three wins and 38
strikeouts during the week.
Houston, Marshall
players take league honors
After setting the tone for a
three-game sweep at No. 23 Tulane, Houston junior righthander Aaron
Brown has been named Conference USA baseball pitcher of the week.
Hitter of the week honors went
to Marshall junior catcher Tommy Johnson, whose career-best weekend
helped the Thundering Herd to a series win at Memphis.
Brown turned in a dominating
performance in the series opener at Tulane, allowing only five hits with
seven strikeouts in seven shutout innings against the Green Wave.
Johnson hit a team-best .545 for
the week, going 6-for-11 with a 1.091 slugging percentage.
Michigan plans new indoor practice facility
Projects to build a new indoor
football practice facility and new soccer fields have been approved by
the Michigan board of regents.
The new football facility,
approximately 104,000 gross square feet to be built on an existing
outdoor practice field, is expected to include a full-size football
field, lobby, restrooms and storage space.
April
24, 2007
ECU softball routs
UTEP for series triumph
The East Carolina softball team
took a giant step closer to securing a spot in the conference tournament
as it routed Texas-El Paso 16-2 in six innings on Sunday afternoon at
the Helen of Troy Softball Complex in El Paso, TX.
The Pirates improve to 34-16 on
the season and 10-7 in conference play while the Miners drop to 27-18
and 6-10 in the conference.
ECU leads Tulsa for second place
in the conference race by one game with both teams having six conference
games left. The Pirates hold the tiebreaker over the Golden Hurricane by
virtue of a 2-1 series win earlier this season in Greenville.
The top six squads in the
conference standing qualify for the tournament.
Tulsa sweeps
Conference USA tennis
No. 1 Tulsa downed No. 3
Marshall, 4-0, in the championship match of the 2007 C-USA women's
tennis championships at Tulsa on Sunday afternoon to claim the league's
automatic bid to the NCAA championship. The appearance will be No. 44
Tulsa's third in program history, its first since 2004.
Top-seeded and 21st-ranked Tulsa
prevailed with a 4-0 victory over No. 2 seed and championship host Rice
to clinch back-to-back Conference USA men's tennis championship titles
Sunday in Houston. Tulsa earns the league's automatic bid to the 2007
NCAA Championships, while No. 30 Rice will likely receive an NCAA
at-large berth.
Majerus meets with Saint Louis officials
Rick Majerus met with Saint
Louis University officials on Saturday but he's not expected to be
staying long and no announcement of his hiring appears to be imminent,
according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report.
Even if Majerus decided he
wanted to return to coaching, SLU would then have to decide if it wanted
to hire him and it's likely the school would at least talk to other
candidates, according to the newspaper's report.
North
Carolina's Wright to enter NBA draft
Brandan Wright of North Carolina
announced on Monday that he plans to enter the NBA draft after averaging
14.7 points and 6.2 rebounds per game as a freshman. Wright also shot
64.6 percent from the field and won ACC rookie of the year honors.
Wright reportedly does not plan
to hire an agent immediately, leaving the door open for a return to the
Tar Heels if he should slip from projections as a lottery pick.
April
23, 2007
ECU wins
nationally-televised softball game
Making its first national
television appearance of the season, the East Carolina softball team
took advantage of the exposure, defeating Texas-El Paso 5-0 before
dropping the second contest of a doubleheader 8-3 at the Helen of Troy
softball complex in El Paso.
The Pirates now sit at 33-16
overall and 9-7 in Conference USA.
Dad
Holtz coaches win in Irish spring game
Lou Holtz, the father of East
Carolina football coach Skip Holtz, coached the Gold team to a 10-6 win
over the Blue in Notre Dame's spring football game on Saturday.
The Gold players doused Holtz,
who coached the Irish to a national champiosnhip in 1988, after the
spring triumph.
"You don't throw Gatorade on a
guy at 70 years old in a spring game when it's not expected," Holtz
said. "I could have had a heart attack and sued Notre Dame for a lot of
money."
Ara Parseghian, who guided Notre
Dame to national titles in 1966 and 1973, coached the Blue.
Throng
turns out for Alabama spring game
Saturday was A-Day, the annual
spring game at Alabama, and 92,138 fans turned out to Bryant-Denny
Stadium to view new coach Nick Saban's early impact on the Crimson Tide
program.
The White team took a 20-13 win
over the Crimson.
Leading 17-13 with 6:19 left,
the first-team offense (White) took the ball and went on a 15-play,
77-yard drive, capped by a 28-yard field goal by Leigh Tiffin.
April
22, 2007
Hokies coach
invited to New York for NFL draft
The NFL has invited Virginia
Tech football coach Frank Beamer to New York for the April 28-29 league
draft, following a gunman's rampage at the school on Monday that left 33
dead.
"They want to pay tribute to the
families and to Virginia Tech," Beamer said on his website.
Beamer has reportedly accepted
the invitation. The Hokies host East Carolina on Sept. 1 in the season
opener for both teams.
Iowa grants transfer release to super frosh
Iowa super freshman Tyler Smith
is transferring, according to a Des Moines Register report.
Smith, a native of Pulaski, TN,
and one of the top recruits of the Steve Alford era, averaged 14.9
points, second on the team. His 4.9 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game led
the team, and he ranked second in assists (3.6). He was a third-team
all-Big Ten Conference selection.
"Tyler asked to be released,
expressing his desire to be closer to his father," Iowa coach Todd
Lickliter said in a statement released by the school. "We respect his
decision to be near his family and will grant the release in order for
Tyler to further his education closer to home."
Smith's father, Billy, suffers
from lung cancer.
Loss
to Tulsa wraps up ECU's tennis season
Top-seeded Tulsa, ranked 21st
nationally in the latest Fila collegiate tennis poll, recorded a 4-0
victory over eighth-seeded East Carolina on Friday afternoon during
quarterfinal play of the 2007 Conference USA men's tennis championship
at Rice's Jake Hess Tennis Stadium.
East Carolina concluded its
season with a 10-14 record.
April
21, 2007
Former ECU gridder
playing in NFL Europe
A total of 12 players from
Conference USA schools appeared on the opening day rosters of NFL Europe
teams as the league began its 15th season this past week.
Eight of C-USA's 12 schools have
players in NFL Europe.
East Carolina is represented by
linebacker Richard Koonce, who is playing for the Rhein Fire.
Texas-Oklahoma game remaining at Cotton Bowl
The Texas-Oklahoma football game
will remain at the Cotton Bowl through 2015, Dallas television station
WFAA and the Dallas Morning News reported.
Dallas Mayor Laura Miller
announced from the 50-yard line at the 75-year-old landmark that the
historic game will remain at its current location.
The reports also indicated that
Grambling and Prairie View will extend their annual game through 2015.
Both games will remain key events during the State Fair of Texas.
Louisiana-Lafayette draws NCAA sanctions
The NCAA put Louisiana-Lafayette
on probation for two years with stipulations that the Ragin' Cajuns will
lose two basketball scholarships. The measures resulted from a
basketball player's correspondence course and the football program's
mandatory summer workouts.
The athletic program will
forfeit 90 percent of its first year's money from the Sun Belt
Conference for playing in the NCAA basketball tournaments in 2004 and
2005.
