Pirates Welcome in 13 New Incoming Baseball Players
GREENVILLE, N.C. – Seventh-year head coach Cliff Godwin formally announced ECU baseball’s 13-man incoming class Friday, which features seven position players, three pitchers and three two-way players.
The 2020-21 recruiting class consists of three infielders (Joey Berini, Jacob Starling and Josh Moylan), three outfielders (Garrett Chandler, Ryley Johnson and Trey Truitt), one catcher (Joey Rezek), three two-way players (CJ Boyd, Cam Clonch and Austin St. Laurent) and three pitchers (Danny Beal, Landon Ginn and Josh Grosz).
“We are very excited about this group of young men,” Godwin said. “This class is very talented and they will be great additions to our P.I.R.A.T.E.S. family. Coach (Jeff) Palumbo and our entire support staff did an unbelievable job putting this class together. Our main goal now is to cultivate our culture with our entire team. We are very excited about putting in a lot of work this fall so our program can continue to succeed at the highest level on and off the field.”
Godwin, a two-time American Athletic Conference Coach-of-the-Year honoree, has guided ECU to four NCAA Regional berths (2018 and 2019 Greenville Regional host), two Super Regional appearances, the 2019 AAC regular season title, a pair of AAC Tournament crowns and a 214-113-1 (.654) overall record. Ten players have earned All-America status, while 10 were NCAA All-Regional selections, 16 were named all-conference (15 first-teamers) and 14 were drafted by Major League Baseball teams.
Off the field, his teams have excelled in the classroom by registering a 3.41 or higher grade point average for the past three years, including a team-best 3.61 in the spring of 2020. That mark bested the previous team-record GPA of 3.52 (Fall 2017). Under Godwin, a two-time Academic All-America selection, his teams have combined to have 300 members on the ECU Director of Athletics Honor Roll (3.0 or higher) while 87 Pirates have earned inclusion on The American All-Academic Team, maintaining a minimum 3.00 GPA – including all 36 members from last year’s club.
The Pirates have earned five-straight American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Awards and boasted the highest team GPA of all baseball programs in The American four consecutive years. Four players have earned CoSIDA Academic All-America honors since 2016 (Travis Watkins/2016 first team, Charlie Yorgen/2016 third team, Jake Agnos/2019 first team, Alec Burleson/2019 third team and 2020 first team). Burleson became the third player in program history to be named a two-time Academic All-America selection joining Godwin and Sam Narron.
In back-to-back years, ECU Baseball has also had a student-athlete presented with the Male Scholar-Athlete-of-the-Year Award by the American Athletic Conference. Agnos was the first student-athlete in school history to win the award in 2019, which was followed by Burleson in 2020.
In the community, the Pirates have donated over 4,500 hours working with programs in the Pitt County area such as the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, Team IMPACT, Riley’s Army, Cypress Glenn Retirement Community Flood Relief, Hurricane Relief, Red Cross, First Born Community Development Center, ACES for Autism, Make-A-Wish Foundation and the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital.
The new players and the veteran members of the ECU squad began fall classes Monday, Aug. 10, and will engage in a four-week period of conditioning drills and individual workouts until official team practice starts later in the fall. The complete fall schedule will be released at a later date.
The Pirates, who posted a 13-4 record during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic shortened-season, return 28 players, including AAC All-Conference performers Tyler Smith (2018) and Jake Kuchmaner (2019). In all, the roster consists of 10 freshmen, six sophomores, nine juniors and three seniors.
