Bucs Set for Big South Tournament

The Bucs are headed to the Big South Tournament, presented by Royal Purple, in Asheville, North Carolina at McCormick Field as the 2009 Tournament gets underway. The top three teams in the conference, Coastal Carolina, Liberty and Winthrop, had all secured their top-four seed spots going into their final series, as the final spot was taken by Radford after clinching it with their performances against Liberty at the end of the week, taking the 2-1 series victory.

Complete Tournament Notes

2009 BSC Bracket

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The Bucs are coming off a three game series against conference leader Coastal Carolina in Conway as they dropped all three, but were the first to score in each game.

The Bucs continue to be lead from the plate by first baseman Nick Chinners coming to the tournament, batting .341, while the team is batting .287. Freshman Patrick Dolan leads the team in hits with 63, while Tyler Thornburg continues his climb towards the home run record with 12. Thornburg needs only three to tie the school record for homers in a single season set in 2004.

The Panthers are batting .317 as a team lead by Billy Alvino (.412) and Alfie Wheeler (.402). The Panther roster brings four other batting over .300, while each of the Panthers’ regular starters have hit at least one homer, spreading their 18 total over nine players.

The Bucs will face High Point (19-30, 11-12) on Tuesday at 4:00 pm in a play-in game as they hope to make it into the playoff bracket. The Panthers are coming off a split with the VMI Keydets after the third game of the series was cancelled due to severe weather.

The Bucs and Panthers also played a two game series due to weather earlier in the season, splitting the series. The Bucs took game one as the Panthers took game two, but not before the Bucs pounded out a total of 28 runs on 37 hits. Senior Tyler Thornburg tallied three homers, while setting a record in RBI (8), and tying the record in runs scored (5). The Bucs tallied 21 runs on 21 hits in game one at High Point before the Panthers pounded out 20 hits in game two to the Bucs’ 16.

The Big South Tournament is presented by Royal Purple Synthetic oil and is hosted by UNC Asheville at McCormick Field this season. Round one will include three play-in games, before the double elimination playoffs begin on Wednesday with the lowest remaining seed facing regular season conference champion Coastal Carolina for an 11:00 am game.

Slugging it out

In two games at High Point, the Bucs pounded out 28 runs on 37 hits, splitting the double header with the Panthers. CSU had a combined five doubles, one triple and five home runs over the two-game stretch, including three homers by Tyler Thornburg. With a 21-4 victory in game one, it was the sixth time this season CSU has scored at least 10 runs, and the first time since May 11, 2002 that they have scored at least 20 runs. Thornburg set a new CSU record with eight RBI in the contest, while tying the school mark with five runs scored

Roberts and Cadenhead Complete Games

Senior Brandon Roberts threw 12 strikouts in the Bucs’ first game against Savannah State on May 13 to tie him with fellow pitcher Jesse Cadenhead who also threw 12 out on Macrch 10 against VMI. Each pitched the full game, Roberts with seven innings and Cadenhead with nine. Robert’s 12 in seven is only one shy of the record for strikeouts in a seven inning game, set in 1975 by Raymond LaPointe in two seperate games.