Shaw Baseball Prepares for 2007 CIAA Championship
Maurice D. Williams
April 17, 2007

Raleigh, NC – The Bears of Shaw University, 2006 CIAA Baseball Champions are getting ready to defend their championship on Thursday, April 19 at 10:00 am on the campus of Virginia State University.  The Bears will enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed and will face No. 1 seed North Carolina Central University.  During the regular season the Bears split with the Eagles 2-2 out of four meetings.  Since the last time they met the Bears have gone on to claim four games in a row headed into the Baseball Championship.

Shaw finished their regular season with an overall record of 22-19 and 13-7 in the CIAA. Going into this year’s tournament the Bears are ranked No. 2 in the CIAA in batting with a .338 average as well as second in scoring and stolen bases in the CIAA.  Shaw is No. 2 in Division II in stolen bases behind North Carolina Central.

Shaw will be led by Micheal Grant and Averill Bryant who were selected as members of the 2007 All-CIAA Baseball team. Grant and Bryant are ranked Nos. 1 & 2 in the CIAA in batting with averages of .449 and .443. In the four meetings versus North Carolina Central, Grant accumulated a batting average of .462 as he went 6-of-13 with 5 RBIs and two runs of his own. Bryant generated an average of .308 going 4-for-13 with 2 RBIs and two runs of his own.