Baseball | 5/18/2024 11:02:00 PM
GREENSBORO – The cancelation of the third game of North Carolina A&T's three-game Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) baseball series at Scherholz Park ended the 2024 regular season for the Aggies.
The Aggies failed to qualify for the upcoming CAA Baseball Championship Tournament, which begins Wednesday, May 22, at UNC Wilmington's Brooks Field and concludes Saturday, May 25, when the eventual champion is crowned. A&T went 26-28 overall and 9-17 in conference play in 2024.
Despite not making the tournament, the Aggies did take two out of three from the CAA regular-season champion College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. The Aggies posted a 6-12 record against the teams that did qualify, including getting swept in a crucial series at Hofstra.
A&T's other highlights outside of taking two out of three from Charleston, the Aggies also went 3-1 against at the Andre Dawson Classic against HBCUs from the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) at the Jackie Robinson Complex in Vero Beach, Fla. They also hosted the No. 1 team in the nation at the time, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, on Feb. 27 at War Memorial Stadium.
The Aggies also swept Eastern Illinois out of the Ohio Valley Conference in a three-game series at #TheWar before sweeping the Atlantic-10's George Mason Patriots at #TheWar. In addition, the Aggies got off to their best start in modern program history, jumping out to a 10-2 record. They also reached 20 wins in 36 games, just shy of the 2017 team's pace of reaching 20 W's in 34 games.
On the coaching side, head coach Ben Hall earned his 200th career win on Thursday in the series opener against Towson. He reached the milestone in 10 seasons, two of those seasons were cut short because of COVID.
Individually, it was an outstanding season for graduate transfer Tatsunori Negishi. Negishi batted .371 with 37 RBIs, eight home runs and 16 doubles. He also compiled 25 extra-base hits. Negishi had a team-leading .588 slugging percentage, walked a team-high 29 times, and led the team in on-base percentage at .477. He was also phenomenal as a defensive player, posting only one error in 372 fielding opportunities. Negishi had an impressive .997 fielding percentage, and his first error of the season did not come until May 12.
Negishi's .371 average ranks him fourth in the CAA, and his eight home runs are the most in a single season by a Japanese-born Division I player in NCAA history. Junior catcher Canyon Brown had another spectacular season for the Aggies.
Like Negishi, Brown excelled at the plate and defensively. Brown batted .310 with a team-leading 49 RBIs. He also added six home runs, 12 doubles and three triples. He slugged .492 and posted a .414 on-base percentage after getting hit 14 times by a pitch. Brown led the Aggies in multiple-hit games (21) and had the longest streak of reaching base safely (27).
Brown also caught 27 base runners trying to steal, which leads the conference. Brown has gunned down an impressive 69 base runners trying to steal in his career. Brown led the Aggies in multiple RBI games with 12.
Senior TJ Ash ranked second on the team in multi-RBI games with 11. He had a career year, batting a career-best .299. He also had career-best in RBIs (44), doubles (16), home runs (4), total bases (89), slugging percentage (.452), on-base percentage (.376), runs scored (39), and walks (24).
Ash will always be remembered for the ease with which he patrolled center field throughout his career. He had a career-best .987 fielding percentage and a career-high five assists from his outfield position. Ash posted 13 assists for his career. Coley Kilpatrick led the way on the mound, finishing the season 7-3 with 14 starts. He posted a 4.02 ERA in 85 innings pitched. Kilpatrick ranked seventh in the CAA in strikeouts (68) and led the conference in complete games (2) while ranking 11th nationally.
Kilpatrick was among the 15 seniors the Aggies honored during Senior Day on May 12. The Aggies will have to replace some of their top hitters and relief pitchers as they seek to qualify for the CAA tournament for the first time since joining the league in 2023.
