The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Zac Ward Named To C-USA All-Freshman Team
5/25/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 25, 2004
HOUSTON, Texas - UAB third baseman Zac Ward has been named to the Conference USA All-Freshman Team, the league office announced Tuesday.
Ward started all 55 games for UAB at third base this season. The true freshman from Hartselle, Ala. was one of only two Blazers to start every contest in 2004. Ward tied for the team lead in multiple-RBI games this season against league opponents with eight. Ward is currently tied for 12th in C-USA in sacrifice bunts with six. He posted a nine-game hitting streak from Feb. 27 - March 12, which included games against Alabama, Purdue, Samford and Marshall.
For the season, Ward hit .271 (56-for-207) with 34 RBI, 11 doubles, five home runs and 40 runs scored.
All-conference voting was done by each of the league's 12 head coaches, baseball sports information directors from each school and one media representative from each school's market.
UAB (28-27, 13-16 C-USA) begins play as the No. 7 seed in the Conference USA Tournament, which begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday in Houston, Texas. The Blazers will face second-seeded Tulane University Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in first round play at Cougar Field on the University of Houston campus.
All of UAB's games at the tournament will be broadcast live via the world wide web on the Blazers' official athletics website, www.uabsports.com. For those who are not Yahoo! subscribers, a monthly subscription can be purchased for $4.95 per month. To listen to the broadcast, click on either "UAB Audio Broadcasts" or "Multimedia" from the UAB athletics website's main page and follow the links.
The Blazers finished the regular season in seventh place in the C-USA standings. The team lost a 7-4 decision at Cincinnati last Saturday in its last outing. However, UAB took two games out of the three-game series as the Blazers won the Thursday and Friday contests.
UAB has won nine of its last 12 road contests, including seven of nine in C-USA play on the road.
Tulane (37-17, 21-9 C-USA) finished the regular season tied for second in the C-USA standings. The team is ranked 16th in the Sports Weekly/ESPN Top 25 Coaches' Poll, 19th by Baseball America, 21st in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll and 27th by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper.
Tulane is coming off a 5-4 win at Houston last Saturday. However, the Cougars took two games out of the three-game series, winning the Thursday and Friday contests. UAB took two games out of a three-game series with the Green Wave April 16-18 at Young Memorial Field.
The winner of the UAB-Tulane game moves on to face the winner of the Southern Miss-Memphis contest Thursday at 4 p.m. The two losers of the first games would meet Thursday at 9 a.m.
The championship game of the tournament on Sunday, May 30 will be televised by affiliates of the Conference USA Television Network and CSTV: College Sports Television. Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast will carry the telecast live.
The tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
