BOSTON? Stony Brook University’s Chris Sipp (Wantagh, N.Y./MacArthur) has been named America East Player of the Week. The award was announced on Monday (February 26).
Sipp batted .417 in the opening weekend against No. 1 North Carolina. The senior second baseman collected five hits in 12 at bats against the Tar Heels. On day two, Sipp went 5-for-8 in a doubleheader with a double. He currently owns a .500 slugging percentage in the early going.
TEAM-BY-TEAM NOTEBOOKS
Albany (0-5, 0-0 America East) started off the season with a southern swing, facing off against ACC competition in Duke and Virginia Tech... The Great Danes, who fell to the Blue Devils, 7-1, and the Hokies, 8-2, then traveled to Liberty for a three-game series... Senior catcher Tom Hill (Emerson, N.J./Emerson) led the team, batting .333 with six hits, two runs scored and two RBI... Hill, who knocked out two doubles in the first week of play, struck out once in 18 at-bats, and went 1-for-1 on stolen base attempts... Senior infielder Dave West (Toms River, N.J./Toms River West) hit .316, recording a team-high .526 slugging percentage... Sophomore right-hander Sean Gregory (West Islip, N.Y./West Islip) made one appearance for the Great Danes, striking out three and allowing no runs in 4.1 innings of work... Sophomore Cory Warrings (Cairo, N.Y./Cairo-Durham) and junior Casey Walsh (Ithaca, N.Y./Ithaca) each fanned a team-best four batters in their appearances on the mound for the Great Danes... UAlbany will travel to Baltimore to face Towson in a three-game series on Saturday, March 3 and Sunday, March 4.
Binghamton’s (0-0, 0-0 America East) 53-game schedule begins in Virginia on the first weekend in March and also features five games in Utah and three games at the Philadelphia Baseball Bash, hosted by Villanova, in mid-March. In Utah, the Bearcats will play a three-game set at BYU, which won 33 games and finished runnerup in the Mountain West Conference last spring, and two games against Utah Valley State... The Bearcats return 17 letterwinners from their most successful team in the program’s Division I era (27 wins), they have a big senior class with an abundance of talent and leadership and the pitching staff has never been better... The lineup showcases three conference all-stars plus the reigning America East Pitcher of the Year... The heart of the order features perhaps the best pure hitter in the conference. Add to that a lefty hurler who is all but a lock to be selected in the MLB Amateur Draft come June.
Hartford (0-0, 0-0 America East) will open its season the earliest in school history with a doubleheader against Long Island University on March 3 at the University of Hartford campus baseball field... Besides Hartford’s America East schedule the Hawks will play opponents from nine different conferences (Northeast, Metro Atlantic Athletic, Patriot, Atlantic-10, Ivy, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, and Atlantic Coast Conference)... The 2007 schedule features games against NEC opponents (Long Island, Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac, and Central Connecticut State University) as well as two opponents from the MAAC (Fairfield, Marist), A-10 (Rhode Island, Massachusetts) and Ivy (Yale, Dartmouth)... Hartford’s first three road trips will not be easy... The Hawks will first travel to Big East opponent West Virginia to take on the Mountaineers for a four game series starting on March 9... The Hawks next travel to Oklahoma State who finished second in the Big 12 in 2006... The Cowboys ended last season ranked 23rd in the nation, according to the Baseball America Poll and posted a record of 41-20... The Hawks third big road trip of the season will begin on March 23 when Hartford travels to the University of Minnesota... The Golden Gophers finished 2006 with a 34-26 record and were fourth overall in the Big Ten.
Two-time defending America East champion Maine (0-0, 0-0 America East) baseball team kicks off the 2006 campaign when it plays Penn in Florida on Saturday, March 3... The Black Bears will play 10 games in Florida... Curt Smith (Willemstad, Curacao/Peter Stuyvesant) was named to the 2007 Wallace Watch List... He also received 2007 National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Preseason All-America Third Team honors... Joel Barrett (Brewer, Maine/Brewer), Greg Norton (South Portland, Maine/South Portland) and Matt McGraw (Burlington, Ontario/Nelson) will serve as tri-captains of the Black Bears... Norton sat out the 2006 season as a medical redshirt and will return to the pitching rotation this year... McGraw was named the M Club/Dean Smith Award winner on Sunday, February 25... The Dean Smith award is presented annually to the top male and female scholar-athlete at Maine.
UMBC (0-3, 0-0 America East) is winless after its opening weekend at William and Mary... The Retrievers were defeated, 2-8, in their season-opener against William and Mary on Friday... Junior Mark Lemon (Wilmington, Del./St. Mark’s) put the Retrievers on the board in the fourth with a single to left to bring junior Will Delawter (Frederick, Md./Chesapeake JC) home and make the score, 4-1, in favor of the Tribe... Lemon also brought in UMBC’s final run of the game in the fifth, being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to bring senior Mike Scheffel (Westminster, Md./Westminster) in for the score... The Retrievers remained scoreless in their first game on Saturday until Delawter’s sacrifice fly in the seventh brought Scheffel in for UMBC’s lone run of the game... Game Two was a see-saw affair, with the Retrievers holding a 4-3 advantage until the seventh, and last, inning... After the Tribe tied the score at four, junior left-hander Tom Schlein (Pasadena, Md./Chesapeake) came in as relief and hit the Tribe player with his second pitch with the bases loaded to give William and Mary the win, 5-4.
Stony Brook (0-0, 0-0 America East) was swept by No. 1 ranked North Carolina in a three-game set at Chapel Hill last weekend... Michael Tansey (Valley Stream, N.Y./Holy Trinity) hit the first home run of his career when he hit a solo shot in game 1... Chris Sipp (Wantagh, N.Y./MacArthur) led the Seawolf charge for the week, batting .417, including 5-for-8 with a double on Day 2... The series against UNC marked the first time the Stony Brook baseball team played the top ranked team in the country... The Seawolves will head south again to take on College of Charleston for a three-game set beginning on Saturday.
Vermont (0-0, 0-0 America East) opens its 110th baseball season with a three-game series at 20th-ranked TCU March 2-4... Coach Bill Currier, the dean of America East baseball coaches, begins his 20th season at UVM. Currier, the 2006 America East Coach of the Year, is the only coach to be with his team every season since the conference began play in 1991... Seniors Jim Chapman (Bourne, Mass./Kents Hill) and Bryan Rembisz (Clinton, Conn./Westbrook) along with junior Joe Serafin (Tariffville, Conn./Simsbury) will captain UVM this season... Led by Chapman at shortstop, Rembisz at second base and Serafin anchoring the pitching staff, Vermont returns its entire infield and its entire weekend rotation from the team that won the 200 America East Regular Season Championship... After the series with the Horned Frogs, the Catamounts are idle until March 10 when it heads to Bradenton, Fla. for eight games.