MOUNTAINEER BASEBALL

Story by Aric Thomas
(05-19-08)

Eastern Baseball has Historic Season

The 41 wins set the school record for wins in a season.  The previous record was 35.  The team also has been ranked virtually all season long in multiple National publications.  The NJCAA Division I baseball poll, in which Eastern is affiliated, ranked the Mountaineers pre-season 22nd in the country.  Eastern remained in the NJCAA poll every week but one, and peaked at 12th on April 2nd.  They finished 15th in the final regular season NJCAA poll.  Perfect Game is another National publication that carries a lot of Junior College baseball coverage.  The Perfect Game poll ranks every Junior College across the country that competes in baseball.  Eastern began the season 34th in their publication and peaked at 17th.  Following the regular season, the Mountaineers remained ranked 25th by the Perfect Game.  Collegiate Baseball ranked Eastern 19th nationally in their most recent publication.  Boyd’s World, who gives every team a rating percentage index based on schedule strength and record, ranked Eastern 24th on May 16th.

Individually, Eastern has and will receive many honors.  Nine Mountaineers were named to either the 1st, 2nd or Honorable Mention All Bi-State Conference teams.  Nate Pettus, Gunner Glad and Steve Irvine each made the 1st team.  Irvine was also named the NJCAA National Player of the Week for his performance from March 17th-23rd.  Gunner Glad and Nate Pettus set the single season home record by blasting 18 home runs a piece.  Glad and Chance Deason were both recognized as two of the top 200 Junior College players in the country by Perfect Game.  Eastern will see 13 sophomores graduate and to date 7 have already committed to play at a higher level next year and as many as 4 more plan on making a decision in the upcoming weeks.  Deason (LHP) and Dearth Parker (SS) have signed letters of intent to play at Oklahoma State University (currently ranked as high as 8th).  Glad (2B/RHP) has signed to play at the University of Kentucky (currently ranked as high as 20th).  Steve Irvine has committed to McNeese State University.  Ashton Mowdy (RHP) has signed with California State University at Los Angeles.  Derek Kiker (RHP) has signed with Clark College.  Carter Browning, Casey Gibson, Blake Mounce, Josh Miller and Jimmy Gammons are still undecided and considering their offers.