Cleveland, TN-The Belhaven baseball team goes back to work on Tuesday afternoon in their first game of the 2009 NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round against Indiana Tech University with the first pitch slated for 11 AM (CDT).
The Blazers (40-18) are the fourth seed while the Warriors (30-24) enter the 2009 NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round as the fifth seed. The Warriors are a member of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference and upset top seeded Madonna University in the conference tournament championship game to punch their ticket to the national tournament.
Belhaven has won six of their last seven games including four victories in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference tournament. The Blazers defeated the University of Mobile twice and 19th ranked LSU-Shreveport twice in en route to their first GCAC Tournament Championship since 2004. Belhaven rallied for two runs in the bottom of the ninth against Mobile for a 3-2 win over the Rams in the GCAC tournament championship game. Belhaven finished third behind LSU-Shreveport and William Carey University in the GCAC regular season standings.
The Blazers are led by pitcher and first baseman
Craig Westcott who is tops on the team with a .356 batting average and 63 RBI's. Westcott also paces the team in pitching wins with an 11-3 record and a 2.83 ERA. Westcott has stuck out 121 batters in 2009 which is a new Belhaven single season record.
Right fielder
Timmy Foster has also had a great season with a team high 14 home runs and 58 runs batted in.
Chanse Cooper patrols center field for the Blazers and provides the spark at the top of the batting order. Cooper has stolen 35 bases in 40 attempts and his speed allows him cover a lot of ground in the outfield. Cooper is hitting at a .332 clip with 11 doubles and a team leading six triples. Second baseman
Lake Eiland is tops on the team in doubles with 19 and came up with a couple of big home runs against the University of Mobile and LSU-Shreveport in the GCAC tournament.
As a team, Belhaven owns a batting average of .310 and has a team ERA of 4.91. Blazer pitchers have struck out 423 hitters and have held opposing batters to a .259 batting average.
Indiana Tech has two players hitting over .400 so far in 2009. Keegan McCamment and Will Richards enter Tuesday's contest with .413 and .407 batting averages respectively. Richards leads the team in home runs with 11 and 64 RBI's. McCamment is second on the club with seven homers and 53 RBI's. As a team, the Warriors boast a team batting average of .315 with 423 runs scored. The pitching staff has an ERA of 6.24 and opponents are hitting .314 against Indiana-Tech hurlers this season. John Paul Akers is the ace of the staff with a 4-1 record and a 2.45 ERA in nine starts with 52 K's.
Joining Belhaven and Indiana Tech in Cleveland are top seeded Tennessee Wesleyan College (43-13), second seeded Lee University (47-12), and the third seed Spring Arbor University (30-10). Tennessee Wesleyan and Lee are ranked 9th and 10th respectively in the final2009 NAIA Baseball Coaches' Top 25 Poll while Spring Arbor received votes in the final rankings. Despite an outstanding finish to the season, the Blazers could not crack the top 25 and also received votes in this year's final poll.
The winner of each field tournament along with the host school, Lewis-Clark State College, will advance on the 2009 Avista-NAIA World Series which is held in Lewiston, Idaho May 22
nd through May 29
th. All the play-by-play action of Belhaven baseball can be heard via Stretch Internet through the athletics website at blazers.belhaven.edu.
