East Carolina senior DH/OF Ryan Jones has been named as the District IV Player of the Year by The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. The NCBWA names one District Player of the Year in nine different districts around the country. The selection of Jones marks the fourth consecutive year that Conference USA has produced a District Player of the Year, as Jake Gautreau (2001) James Jurries (2002) and Michael Aubrey (2003) of Tulane earned this honor over the past three years.

Jones was named the 2004 Conference USA Player of the Year after hitting .409 heading into the conference tournament and finishing league play hitting .407 in conference. He has led the nation in slugging percentage for most of the season and is currently slugging at .828 with 47 of his 84 hits serving as extra-base hits, including 24 doubles, four triples and 19 home runs. Jones has produced a team-high 69 RBI and posted 25 multiple hit games and 14 multiple RBI games.

He was selected in the 22nd round of last week’s Major League Baseball Draft by the Oakland Athletics and will try and lead ECU to its first College World Series when the Pirates play at South Carolina in the NCAA Super Regional this weekend.

The other District Players of the Year include: Dartmouth 3B Ed Lucas, Rutgers 2B Craig Badger, Ole Miss 1B/P Stephen Head, Indiana SS Seth Bynum, Nebraska 3B Alex Gordon, Texas P J.P. Howell, UNLV OF Eric Neilson and Long Beach State P Jered Weaver.

The nine geographic areas of each District are broken down as follows:
District I - Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania
District II - Connecticut, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, District of Columbia
District III - Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida
District IV - Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland
District V - Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin
District VI - Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota
District VII - Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana
District VIII - Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Montana
District IX - California, Oregon, Washington, Hawai’i, Arizona, Alaska