One of Coastal Carolina's chief frustrations this season has been its lackluster offensive production, but at least one of the the team's key bats seems to be heating up in a big way.
Junior second baseman Tommy La Stella was named the Big South player of the week Monday for the first time in his collegiate career after a blistering 10-for-15 performance over four games last week. That included two doubles, a triple and three home runs.
With that, La Stella -- the Big South's preseason player of the year -- is up to a team-leading .344 batting average and five home runs.
"Tommy is working so hard right now to be a leader of this team and show us how to get it done," CCU coach Gary Gilmore said. "We need him to perform like that. Again, going 10 for 15 is hard to do, but heck, the thing that's crazy about him, he hit a couple of missiles that were caught. He didn't have any cheap hits that I can really remember, maybe one that was a groundball that beat a guy. But his at-bats were great."
The Chants are still hitting .240 as a team -- after batting .324 collectively last year -- but Gilmore is hopeful things will start to turn soon.
Senior third baseman Scott Woodward is also on the rise, upping his average to .321, while senior center fielder Hayes Orton has remained steady and carries a .316 average into the week. The rest of the lineup, well, it still has a way to go.
The Chants rank last in the Big South in batting average through 25 games.
"You look at the conference stats, we're first in pitching, we're tied or first in fielding, we're first in several things team-wise, and we're significantly last in offense," Gilmore said. "As soon as we get the two or three other guys going the way some of these guys are going then that offensive number will [improve]. We might not be able to change the year-long numbers, but we can change the second-half numbers, and that's all that matters.
"We're going to have to be a second-half offensive club, and we have the ability to do that and be a great club, there's no doubt."
| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com
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