By By KEVIN TRAVIS, Sports Editor
GREENVILLE — The East Carolina Pirates will play their final regular season home game tonight against the Elon Phoenix.
ECU and Elon will begin play at 7 p.m. at Clark-LeClair Stadium.
The Pirates (35-17, 13-7), currently in second place in the Conference USA standings, are coming off a three-game conference sweep of UCF. ECU has won seven straight conference games.
Following tonight’s game, the Pirates will close out C-USA play Thursday thru Saturday at UAB (23-30, 10-11). The Pirates are 11-1 all-time against the Blazers.
"It's important for us to come in here and keep the momentum going as we go into the conference tournament,” Godwin said. “I told our guys that we're building our resume for the NCAA tournament. Every game is very important, whether it's league or non league."
Today’s game against Elon (27-24) will be the first time the teams have met since 2003. The Pirates hold a 14-8-1 series lead.
Senior Jeff Ostrander will start for the Pirates. Ostrander, who will be making his third start of the season, is 2-1 with a 6.75 ERA.
Elon will start left-hander Jesse Lewter, who is 3-3 with a 6.39 ERA.
The Phoenix last played May 8, falling 9-0 to No. 4 North Carolina. Elon lost two of three to No. 24 College of Charleston prior to that game.
The Pirates have a .290 batting average with 58 homers and 309 RBIs. The injured Dale Mollenhauer leads the team with a .329 batting average.
Ryan Wood is hitting .327 with five homers and 21 RBIs. Stephen Batts, whose 18-game hitting streak is the fourth longest in school history, is hitting .318 with five homers and 46 RBIs.
Other top hitters for ECU are Kyle Roller (.318, seven homers, 25 RBIs), Ryan Tousley (.312, 10 homers, 48 RBIs), Drew Schieber (.309, five homers, 16 RBIs) and Harrison Eldridge (.303, five homers, 23 RBIs).
Elon is hitting .295 with 45 homers and 336 RBIs. Drew Davis leads the team with a .351 average to go with a homer and 27 RBIs.
Other tops hitters for the Phoenix are Chris Dove (.337, one homer, 22 RBIs), Chase Austin (.336, three homers, 36 RBIs), Chris Vasami (.330, five homers, 41 RBIs), Pat Irvine (.329, eight homers, 37 RBIs), Mike Melillo (.300, five homers, 22 RBIs) and Ryan Addison (.279, nine homers, 36 RBIs).
ECU will be the host site for the C-USA Tournament, which will be held May 23-27 at Clark-LeClair Stadium.