FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
Tom Holliday (Courtesy of NC State Media Relations)
RALEIGH, N.C. — NC State head baseball coach Elliott Avent today announced that the Wolfpack signed 13 prospective student-athletes to national letters-of-intent during the November signing period. With associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Tom Holliday spearheading NC State’s recruiting efforts, the Pack signed one catcher, four infielders, four righthanded pitchers and one lefthanded pitcher, along with three two-way players. All three of the two-way players pitch righthanded. Two are infielders, one an outfielder.
“We’re truly excited about our 2009 signing class,” Avent said. “Last year’s recruiting class was ranked No. 21 in the country and we believe that was an outstanding class. We think this class is definitely better. That would be two outstanding classes in a row, so we’re obviously very excited about this group. The credit should go to recruiting coordinator Tom Holliday, who is one of the best recruiters in the country, and to assistant coach Chris Hart, who played a huge role in scouting, recruiting and signing many of the players in this class.”
The Wolfpack landed three in-state players, including Chris Diaz of Apex High School. Diaz is the younger brother of former NC State shortstop Jonathan Diaz, a crowd favorite at Doak Field at Dail Park during his Wolfpack playing days from 2004-06. In addition, the Pack landed highly regarded righthander Daniel Tuttle of Randlemann High School, ranked the No. 47 high school player in the country by Baseball America, and righthander Ethan Ogburn of Southwest Guilford High School.
Three of NC State’s signees — Tuttle, outfielder/righthanded pitcher Terran Senay of South Park, Pa., and righthander Felix Roque of Miami Christian High School — ranked among Baseball America’s top 100 national high school seniors.
NC State scored heavily in the state of Florida, signing eight players from the Sunshine State. Six are high school players, and two are highly regarded junior college players. Three of the high school signees from Florida were first-team all-state as juniors in 2008. Perfect Game USA lists five of the Pack’s signees among the top 50 high school prospects in the state of Florida for the 2009 Major League Baseball draft.
“We’ll probably lose a good deal of pitching to the draft and to graduation,” Avent said. “Immediate pitching help was a priority in this recruiting class. We think that with the quality pitchers we have in this class that we’ve filled that need. We also went into the recruiting season looking to add help at catcher and the middle of the infield. You can never have enough middle infielders, and Matt Bergquist and Chris Diaz are excellent high school infielders. In addition, we have a history of bringing in great high school catchers in this program. We’re hopeful that Marlon Mitchell and Daniel Canella can continue that tradition.”
