Sean Ryan
FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Senior baseball players Rhett Ballard, Ty Hohman and Sean Ryan were recently elected by their teammates as the Virginia Tech team captains for the 2009 season, head coach Pete Hughes announced on Monday.
“Rhett, Tyler and Sean have paid their dues – socially, academically and on the field – to enjoy the success that I anticipate our team having this year,” Hughes said. “I feel that we can achieve our goal of being a winning baseball team through the leadership of these three young men. They represent everything we want to see in a Virginia Tech baseball player.”
Ballard, a redshirt senior pitcher from High Point, N.C., has led the team in appearances the past two seasons and enters 2009 as the Hokies’ No. 1 starter. A workhorse who can go deep into games, Ballard made a smooth transition from reliever to starter in 2008 and finished the season as the club’s leader in strikeouts.
Hohman, a native of Tomball, Texas, is a redshirt senior who arrived in Blacksburg prior to last season after spending two years in junior college. He missed the second half of the season after getting hit in the face with a pitch, but started 25 of the team’s first 27 games. He has the ability to play all four infield positions and will likely be a stalwart in the 2009 lineup.
Ryan is a senior from Ashburn, Va., who broke out in 2008 with a .305 batting average, 36 runs scored and 10 stolen bases. He started 50 games for the Hokies in center field and will be the everyday guy there once again in 2009. A great defender, Ryan had committed just one error in his three-year career.
The Hokies open the 2009 season on Feb. 20 against UNC Asheville in the Courtyard by Marriott Classic in Spartanburg, S.C.
