Baseball opens season at St. Mary’s

For Immediate Release

January 30, 2020

Cameron University Athletics

Kenton Means – Sports Information Director

LAWTON, Okla.– The Cameron Aggie baseball team opens their 2020 season by traveling down to San Antonio, Texas to take on the St. Mary’s Rattlers for a three-game slate.

With the addition of seven new baseball programs to the Lone Star Conference, the league begins with game one. St. Mary’s is one of those new programs and this is the first time that the two programs have met. Cameron enters the new season picked to finish ninth in the new-look LSC.

To open the year, the Aggies will hand the ball to Brody Curry to get the season started as the game one starter. Curry turned in a deceiving 11.45 ERA a year ago, but first-year head coach Kyle Williams said, “We are looking for big things from Brody.” Curry was top five in strikeouts on last year’s club and the now senior made seven starts for the Black and Gold a year ago and appeared in eleven games. Curry also proved to be versatile earning the most saves out of the Aggie bullpen a year ago.

New assistant coach Kyle Fultz and graduate assistant Ty Harris will look to Curry, sophomore Drew Henderson, and transfer Kalen Haynes to lead a pitching group that will try and improve from Cameron’s 7.19 team era from last season.

At the dish, transfer Ryan Carter will look to add a spark to the lineup that loses a handful of bats from last year’s squad. Williams added, “Ryan Carter will be a big bat for us in the middle of the lineup.” Carter comes to CU from Marshalltown CC where he earned second-team all-conference honors in the outfield a year ago. Carter hit .299 at the dish, which would’ve been fifth on the team a year ago for the Aggies (minimum 100 at-bats). The Ennis, Texas product got on base at a .423 clip and clubbed seven homers while adding nine doubles to his resume that increased his slugging percentage to .579.

Carter adds to the collection of returning bats that Williams has on his bench that includes 2019 all-conference selections Izrael Trevino and Dillon Turney. A full season of Nate Pecota will help fill the top of the order, as the senior hit .300 in hits 45 at bats after returning from injury. Jordan Harrison-Dudley will look to add some pop to the lineup and improve from his three homers a year ago, while Beau Williams and Erik Ohman fill in the middle infield spots that were left open by the graduation of Trey Bigford and Pierce Khan.

Black and Gold has a quintet of Lawton natives looking to make an impact in 2020. Michael Womack is slated to get the ball on Saturday for the Aggies, as the Eisenhower graduate will look to step into the rotation and give CU quality innings, after just appearing in relief last season. Spencer Brown (Eisenhower) and Alex Ward (Lawton High) should see some innings out of the Aggie pen after redshirting in 2019. Ward logged 16 innings in 2018, with seven strikeouts, and held opposing batters to a .237 average. Joseph Flood, who earned a save out of the CU pen a year ago and tallied eight strikeouts across 8.2 innings, also looks to be an asset in the Cameron bullpen.

Additionally, CU’s fifth Lawtonian, Trey Longacre, a Lawton MacArthur grad, will provide some much-needed depth behind the plate for the Black and Gold, who will look to replace all-region catcher Hayden Jaco. Williams tabbed senior Cooper Edwards and sophomore Nik Sanchez to get the bulk of the work as the CU backstop, but Longacre and freshman Sebastian Figga could also get reps behind the plate.

For the Rattlers, they come into Friday’s opener pegged for a 7th place finish in the Lone Star Conference, two spots ahead of their week one opponents the Aggies.

CU will have to work around Rattler’s slugger Andrew Perez all weekend, as the senior outfielder started every game for StMU a year ago and turned in .358 batting average in 2019. The El Paso, Texas native produced 42 RBIs in 2019 with 17 extra-base hits and had perfect fielding percentage while roaming the outfield for the StMU.

On the bump for the Rattlers, the Aggies will need to attack Mason Minister early. The senior hurler turned in an under 3.00 ERA, in 14 appearances last season. Minister also posted a 1.00 WHIP and held opponents to just a lowly .195 batting average. He, like Curry, did it all for the Rattlers getting a couple saves out of the bullpen.

The three-game series will begin with a 4 p.m. first pitch on Friday, followed by 1 p.m. starts on Saturday and Sunday. Following the trip to San Antonio, CU will host Texas A&M-Kingsville for their first home series of the year. First pitch for game one of that three-game slate will be on Friday, Feb. 7, at 3 p.m.

Kenton Means, ‘15

Sports Information Director – Cameron University

2800 W. Gore Blvd., South Shepler 512

Lawton, OK 73505

Office – (580) 581-2303

Cell – (580) 583-2210

Fax – (580) 581-5537

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