East Carolina pitcher Toni
Paisley has been named Conference USA's softball freshman of the year as
announced by the league at its end-of-the-season banquet in Orlando, FL,
Wednesday.
Paisley's honor was announced in
conjunction with the naming of the All-Conference team on the eve of
today's first pitch of the 2007 C-USA Softball Championship tournament
presented by Coca-Cola and hosted by Central Florida. The all-league
list included five Pirates: sophomore Jessica Johnson (first team),
Paisley (second team and all-freshman team), senior Keli Harrell (second
team), freshman Charina Sumner (second team and all-freshman team),
freshman Kaui Tom (all-freshman team).
Johnson was also selected to the
C-USA Softball All-Academic Team.
Paisley holds a record of 19-5
overall and 10-3 in conference play. The freshman has thrown 19 complete
games this season and ranks in the top six among C-USA pitchers in ERA,
wins, opposing batting average and strikeouts.
Pirate women's track signs Durham standouts
East Carolina's has landed a
pair of prep stars from Durham, ECU head women's track and field coach
Curt Kraft announced Wednesday.
"These athletes will help us
continue to build on great North Carolina kids," said Kraft of Ericka
Charles and Kia Haskins, who have formally signed National Letters of
Intent with the Pirates.
Charles, a senior at the Durham
School of the Arts, was the 2006 state runner-up in the outdoor
200-meter dash (2A) and was fourth in the 400-meter dash (2A). She is
currently the state champion in the indoor 500-meter dash (1-3A) and her
time ranks fifth all-time in North Carolina history. Charles was named
Conference Track Athlete of the Year and was named to the 2006 All-State
Cross Country team (2A).
Haskins is a senior at Durham
Hillside High School. She is the 2005 state champion in the outdoor
400-meter dash (3A), and was seventh in the 200-meter dash (3A). Haskins
was named team MVP and is currently ranked in the top ten in her
graduating class at Durham Hillside.
Man gets life for killing TCU football player
A 42-year-old Conroe, TX, man
received a life sentence Wednesday for fatally shooting Texas Christian
freshman kicker Kasey Davis last year, according to various news reports
out of Texas.
Police say Davis was gunned down
in a car while heading home for Christmas break in January 2006 — in an
apparently random shooting — by Jeffrey Clay Lasiter. Neither men knew
each other.
Lasiter pleaded guilty Monday
before the start of his trial. His attorneys had argued that he suffers
from a mental illness.
May 9, 2007
ECU's Morman captures
triple jump at Duke
East Carolina’s Camelia Morman
competed in the Duke Twilight Meet this past weekend in Durham and won
the triple jump event with a mark of 12.47 meters, a distance that
qualified her for the NCAA regionals.
The NCAA qualifying mark for the
triple jump is 12.32 meters.
Morman and the Pirates head this
weekend for the Conference USA outdoor championships.
Pirates earn a bye in C-USA softball tourney
Pairings are set for the 2007
Conference USA softball tournament. The event runs Thursday through
Saturday at the Central Florida softball complex in Orlando.
Houston clinched its first
regular season title and will enter the championship as the No. 1 seed.
East Carolina claimed the No. 2 seed and also received a first round
bye.
Third-seeded Tulsa will meet No.
6 Memphis for a chance to advance to meet the Pirates. Host and No. 4
Central Florida opens play against No. 5 Marshall, with the winner
facing the top-seeded Cougars.
ECU's
Hose named C-USA pitcher of week
After setting the tone for a
three-game sweep at Houston with a brilliant performance on Friday
night, East Carolina junior righthander T.J. Hose has been named
Conference USA pitcher of the week for the period of May 1-6.
Hose improved to 6-4 on the
season after picking up the win in Friday night’s 3-1 victory at
Houston. He went 7 2/3 innings, allowing four hits and one walk while
striking out five.
Hose gave up a hit in the first
inning, then retired 16 of the next 18 batters, including 14 in a row at
one point, and did not allow a runner past second base. His 7 2/3
innings worked tied a season-high and his four hits allowed was the
second-fewest he has given up this season.
This is the second time this
season that Hose has received the weekly honor. Hitter of the week
honors went to Southern Miss sophomore outfielder Michael Ewing, who had
an outstanding weekend at the plate as the Golden Eagles swept Marshall.
May 8, 2007
Omaha mulls replacing
Rosenblatt Stadium
Omaha mayor Mike Fahey is
actively pursuing the option of building a $50 million-plus ballpark in
the so-called NoDo area between the Creighton University campus and the
Qwest Center Omaha, according to an Omaha World-Herald report.
A tentative decision to build a
9,000-seat stadium with the ability to expand to 25,000 seats for the
College World Series could come by the first pitch of this year's
series. The NCAA's baseball committee will be in Omaha when the series
opens June 15.
For several years, a two-stadium
option — Rosenblatt as the CWS home and a smaller NoDo stadium for the
Omaha Royals and Creighton — has been batted about.
"There is no way we want to own
two stadiums," Fahey said last week.
Sentimental attachment may be on
the side of the 59-year-old Rosenblatt, but practical considerations and
the biggest bang for the buck appear to be propelling the city toward a
new stadium.
Fahey and community leaders want
to extend to 2020 the agreement with the NCAA that makes Omaha the home
of the college baseball championships. The current CWS agreement expires
in 2010.
Duke seeded No. 1 for NCAA lacrosse tourney
Led by number one seed Duke, the
Atlantic Coast Conference placed four teams in the 2007 NCAA men's
lacrosse tournament. Virginia received the No. 2 seed, while Maryland
and North Carolina are seventh and eighth-seeded, respectively.
The Blue Devils, winners of nine
in a row and owners of a 14-2 overall record, will make their 11th
appearance in the NCAA Tournament as the squad hosts Providence College
on Saturday, May 12, at Koskinen Stadium in Durham.
Saturday's tilt will mark the
first between the Blue Devils and Friars. Face-off is set for noon for
the game, which will be televised live on ESPNU.
JamesOn Curry's paperwork cleared up for draft
Oklahoma State basketball player
JamesOn Curry was added to the list of early entry candidates for the
NBA draft after a paperwork mystery was solved, according to a Tulsa
World report.
The NBA released its official
list of early entry draft candidates Thursday and Curry's name was not
on the list.
That came as a surprise since
the Pleasant Grove, NC, product announced last week that he was making
himself eligible for the draft. Shortly after the list was unveiled, an
NBA spokesman indicated Curry would not be eligible for the 2007 draft
because the necessary paperwork was not received from the Cowboy guard
before an April 29 deadline.
However, after dialogue between
OSU's compliance department and the NBA, it was determined that Curry's
paperwork had simply been misplaced.
The NBA sent out a revised list
of early entry candidates and Curry's name was on the list.
Curry said last week that he
would not hire an agent, thus leaving open the option of returning to
the Cowboys for his final season. Curry initially signed with North
Carolina but his subsequent drug-related arrest and the arrival of Roy
Williams as Tar Heels coach resulted in his enrollment at OSU.
May 7, 2007
ECU softball
seeded No. 2 for C-USA tourney
Having clinched the second seed
in the upcoming Conference USA softball tournament by virtue of Tulsa's
loss to Texas-El Paso on Saturday, the East Carolina softball team kept
momentum on its side on Sunday in Hattiesburg as it completed a
three-game sweep of Southern Miss 8-4.
The Pirates finish the regular
season with a 38-18 overall record and a 14-9 mark in conference play.
The conference tournament is
Thursday through Saturday in Orlando.
UAB, UNLV
lose football scholarships
The NCAA has released its
three-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) data, in which only 112 of 6,100
Division I sports teams lost scholarships or were publicly sanctioned
for failing to meet acceptable standards. But officials warned that
significantly more teams in the major sports could be in trouble next
year, according to sportsillustrated.com.
According to the data, 44
percent of men's basketball teams, 40 percent of football teams and 35
percent of baseball teams had three-year APR scores below the 925 cut
under which schools can be penalized. Many avoided sanctions due to
"squad-size adjustments," the NCAA's margin-of-error factor.
Beginning next year, when the
NCAA will for the first time have four years of data for each school,
squad-size adjustments will be eliminated, putting any team below 925 in
danger.
Among 12 Division I-A football
schools receiving sanctions, UAB, from Conference USA, lost one
scholarship and UNLV, where former East Carolina athletic director Mike
Hamrick is AD, lost three.
Prosser heading to Kuwait for USO operation
Wake Forest basketball coach
Skip Prosser, is heading to Kuwait May 22 as part of Operation Hardwood
IV. Prosser and some of his colleagues will be on a military base for
six days coaching teams of service members.
The tour is sponsored by the USO
and Armed Forces Entertainment (AFE). Equipment and uniforms for the
tour are being provided by Nike.
Joining Prosser on the trip will
be Mike Brey (Notre Dame), Ed Conroy (The Citadel), Jim Crews (Army),
Dennis Felton (Georgia), Fran Fraschilla (ESPN analyst and former St.
John's head coach), Mike Lonergan (Vermont) and Reggie Minton (NABC).