May 1, 2008

GREENVILLE, N.C. - The UAB baseball team travels to No. 30 East Carolina this weekend for a Conference USA series at Clark-LeClair Stadium which gets underway Friday at 7:00 p.m. ET. UAB took two-out-of-three games from the Pirates at Young Memorial Field last season, but will need to overcome a solid ECU pitching staff to come away victorious this weekend.

UAB enters the series 19-24 (4-11 C-USA), while East Carolina comes in with a record of 33-13 (8-7 C-USA).

UAB is slated to start James Oliver (4-2, 5.08) on the mound Friday with Mitch Kloskowski (5-4, 5.06) to follow on Saturday and Kyle Roberson (4-5, 4.62) to close out the series on Sunday.

East Carolina will counter with Seth Maness (7-0, 2.81) Friday night, Justin Bristow (6-2, 2.74) on Saturday and Preseason All-Conference USA selection T.J. Hose (4-4, 5.09) on Sunday.

The Blazers are led offensively by first baseman Ryan Keedy who leads Conference USA in batting average (.413), on base percentage (.510) and doubles (20).

Third baseman Luke Stewart has been one of the hottest hitters in C-USA the past couple of weeks as he has batted .474 with 10 RBI and four home runs in UAB's last 10 games. Left fielder Phil Bell enters the series on a 14-game hitting streak and is batting .324 with eight home runs and 46 RBI.

East Carolina catcher Corey Kemp leads the Pirates offensively, batting .358 with 12 homers and 51 RBI.

All three games can be followed live on Gametracker through UABsports.com.