TicketsMay 18, 2009
CLEARWATER, Fla. - At the 2009 BIG EAST baseball awards banquet on Monday, May 18, senior Mike Spina (Newberry, Fla./Newberry) and junior Lance Durham (Forest Park, Ohio/Roger Bacon) both earned 2009 second-team all-BIG EAST honors. It is the second consecutive year that Spina has earned second-team accolades, while it's the first BIG EAST all-conference selection for Durham.
Spina led the Bearcats and the BIG EAST in home runs with 22 this season, and finished third in the league in RBI (68), third in total bases (148), third in walks (38), and fifth in slugging percentage (.670). Spina's 22 home runs broke the UC single-season home runs record, which Spina set in 2008 with 21 home runs. For his career, Spina currently sits in third place on the career home runs chart with 43, and also ranks in the Top 10 in UC history in batting average, sacrifice flies, RBI, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage.
In his first season with Cincinnati, Durham finished the regular-season with a BIG EAST leading .431 batting average and a league-best 97 hits, while finishing second in the conference in on-base percentage (.508). Durham is tied for second on the team with nine home runs, while ranking second on the squad with 53 RBI. Durham drove in the game-winning RBI against Seton Hall on May 15 to clinch the eighth and final spot in the BIG EAST Championships, and that hit moved him past current Boston Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis as Cincinnati's single-season hits leader. Youkilis collected 96 hits in the 1999 season.
The Bearcats open the 2009 BIG EAST Championships against regular-season champion and top overall seed, Louisville, on Tuesday, May 19, at 1 p.m. at Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater, Fla. All UC games can be heard live on GoBEARCATS.com. In addition, every game of the 2009 Championship may be heard on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. The live broadcasts can be heard on XM channel 203 and on Sirius channel 217 for subscribers to the Best of XM package.
Coverage of the BIG EAST Championship also will be available on the web at www.bigeastbaseball.com. The site will include live streaming video of all games from the first four days of competition along with live statistics and an interactive live blog from the site.