The Elon Phoenix baseball team is the interscholastic baseball team from Elon University in Elon, North Carolina. They are part of the Division 1 Southern Conference. The team is led by Head coach Mike Kennedy who is now in his 17th season as head coach. His previous 16 Elon teams have collected 15 winning records and 14 campaigns of 30 or more victories, all while consistently playing against many of the country’s finest programs.
Kennedy’s program has won 40 or more games in three of the last seven seasons and boasts four Southern Conference regular-season crowns.
With each victory tallied, Kennedy adds to his record for the most wins by an Elon baseball coach that he set in 2003. In his 16 seasons, Kennedy has guided the Phoenix to 543 victories. In the last 14 seasons, Elon has had 22 victories over opponents ranked in the top-25. In his tenure, Kennedy has led his program to 49 victories over Atlantic Coast Conference opponents.
In 2012, Kennedy led his Phoenix squad to yet another top-three finish in the SoCon as the maroon and gold went 33-26 overall and 20-10 in league action. Kennedy’s teams have now posted at least 30 victories in each of their 13 official NCAA Division I seasons.
At the conclusion of the season, two Elon players were selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. Two Phoenix standouts were also recognized with All-Southern Conference accolades.
During the 2011 season, Kennedy collected his 500th career victory as his Phoenix shutout league rival Georgia Southern 9-0 on April 24. The squad won the program’s fourth Southern Conference regular-season crown by churning out 23 league victories. Overall, the team posted a 36-21 record.
Following the year, four Elon players were selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft and a fifth signed a free agent contract. Four members of the squad were also recognized with all-league accolades, including John Brebbia who was chosen as the SoCon Pitcher of the Year. Infielder Sebastian Gomez was honored as a member of the Louisville Slugger Freshmen All-American Team.
Elon currently plays its home games at Walter C. Latham Park on Elon’s campus. (Calvert, 2009)
Read more about Elon Phoenix Baseball: Elon’s Head Coach Mike Kennedy, Top Major League Baseball Draft Picks in Elon’s History (Top 10 Rounds), Southern Conference, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words phoenix and/or baseball:
“And there’s a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Baseball is the religion that worships the obvious and gives thanks that things are exactly as they seem. Instead of celebrating mysteries, baseball rejoices in the absence of mysteries and trusts that, if we watch what is laid before our eyes, down to the last detail, we will cultivate the gift of seeing things as they really are.”
—Thomas Boswell, U.S. sports journalist. “The Church of Baseball,” Baseball: An Illustrated History, ed. Geoffrey C. Ward, Knopf (1994)