Three Pirates on All AAC Squad
CLEARWATER, Fla. - East Carolina junior Evan Kruczynski and freshman Dwanya Williams-Sutton garnered first-Team All AAC honors according to a league announcement on Monday afternoon.
East Carolina has had at least one player selected to a first-team for 13-straight seasons.
Kruczynsk (6-1)i enters The American Baseball Championships with a league 1.95 ERA which ranks second in the conference.. The ECU left-hander who has had twelve quality starts and twenty-two in his career ranks among the league leaders in pickoffs (first), ERA (third), fewest runs allowed (third), fewest earned runs allowed (fourth), Ks looking (seventh), wins (t6th), fewest walks (ninth) and total strikeouts (ninth).
He was named to the Golden Spike Midseason Award and National College Baseball Hall of Fame Pitcher-of-the-Year Watch lists this season and is a semifinalist for the Gregg Olson Award.
Kruczynski he has registered 77 strikeouts to 18 walks in his 14 starts, while allowing 27 runs (21 earned) on 88 hits in 97.0 innings.
Williams-Sutton is the AAC leader with a.372 batting average, in slugging percentage (.601) and on-base percentage (.463) in this his freshman season.
He started 47 of 48 games, belted five home runs, laced four triples and 11 doubles (20 extra base hits), while scoring 28 runs, driving in 27 and swiped 6 of 9 bases and became the first Pirate since Brian Cavanaugh who lead C-USA with a 382 batting average.
Williams-Sutton earned American Player-of-the-Week honors on Monday and took home two league honor roll selections (February 29 and May 9) and had six game-winning RBI with four coming in AAC play.
Travis Watkins who made the second team, batted .315 on the season which ranked sixth in The American Athletic Conference. The four-time Johnny Bench Award candidate and 2015 semifinalist, lead ECU into the AAC Tournament with 14 doubles and 36 runs. He ranked second in RBI (31) and total bases (87).
Watkins, who has hit three home runs, had five game winning RBI (13 career) and has tallied at least one hit in 45 of ECU's 54 games. Against Memphis (April 16), he knocked three doubles in the Pirates 8-2 win, which hadn’t been done since 2011 when Trent Whitehead had three doubles. He also ranks among the league leaders in runners thrown out (third), hits (fourth), on-base percentage (sixth) and doubles (t6th).
The Pirates (34-19-1) head to Orlando for the 2016 American Baseball Tournament on Wednesday, May 25 at Bright House Field against seventh seeded USF (23-31).
Game time is 11 a.m. .
