Spring sports standouts

Although the Charlotte 49ers haven’t won a men’s basketball championship since entering the Atlantic 10 in 2005, the school’s spring sports’ teams have been consistently excellent – some even dominant – in the league, often with local athletes. Here’s how they’ve been faring this spring:

Baseball
25-8, 10-2 A-10 (first place)
A-10 tournament: May 25-29, Camden, N.J.
Skinny: 49ers, who play Wake Forest on Tuesday and N.C. Central on Wednesday, have won 15 straight at home.
Player to watch: Junior Corey Shaylor (Independence High) leads the league in hitting (.435) and went eight-for-11 in a three-game sweep of preseason favorite Dayton last weekend. Shaylor was the league’s rookie of the year in 2008.

Softball
31-12, 10-2 (second)
A-10 tournament: May 12-15, Amherst, Mass.
Skinny: Charlotte has a six-game conference winning streak and has and won 30 games for a fifth consecutive season.
Player to watch: Senior pitcher Emily Jeffery (Butler) holds the 49ers’ career strikeout record (681 and counting) and threw a no-hitter earlier this season against St. Bonaventure. A transfer from USC Upstate, Jeffery threw a no-hitter in her Charlotte debut in 2008 against Presbyterian.

Golf
A-10 tournament: April 30-May 2, Orlando, Fla.
Skinny: 49ers have won four consecutive league titles.
Player to watch: Senior Corey Nagy (Vance) is a three-time All-American who has six top-five finishes this season, including a victory at the Irish Creek Intercollegiate in Charlotte and a second-place last week at the Robert Kepler Intercollegiate in Columbus, Ohio.

Track and field
A-10 meet: May 1-2, Amherst, Mass.
Skinny: 49ers women have won four straight league championships; men have taken two of the last four.
Athletes to watch: Sophomore Jake Deaton (Mooresville) won two events – the discus and shot put – in last weekend’s Charlotte Invitational. His shot put of 56 feet, 8.75 inches was a personal record and close to the school record of 57-1. Sophomore Amanda Goetschius (Franklinville, N.J.) won the 5,000 meters in last weekend’s Larry Ellis Invitational in Princeton, N.J. Her time of 16 minutes, 16.97 seconds was second fastest in school history.

Men’s tennis
Skinny: The 49ers finished seventh in the A-10’s recent tennis championship. Krzysztof Kwasniewicz, a freshman from Poland who played mostly No. 6 singles, was the only player with a winning record (11-9) this season. -- David Scott