Junior right fielder to report to Peoria of the Arizona League

RINDGE, N.H. (July 27, 2009) – Junior right fielder Kevin Rivers (Bristol, Conn./Bristol Eastern) of the Franklin Pierce University baseball team has signed a professional contract with the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball. Rivers will report to the Mariners’ rookie-level, Arizona League affiliate in Peoria, Ariz.

“I’m so pumped,” Rivers said on Monday afternoon. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a little kid to play professionally, and now it’s right in front of me. I can say I’m a professional baseball player.”

In 31 games this summer for the Danbury Westerners of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, Rivers hit .286 (30-for-105) with seven doubles and four home runs. He drove in 22 runs, scored 14 times and drew 12 walks en route to a .467 slugging percentage and a .364 on-base percentage. Rivers was selected to partake in the NECBL’s annual Home Run Derby earlier this month.

For the Ravens this spring, Rivers finished fifth on the team with a .314 batting average (64-for-204) and led the team with 19 doubles. He finished second in the conference in doubles, tied for sixth in hits, eighth in runs scored (40) and total bases (103) and 11th in slugging percentage (.505) and runs batted in (37). He collected American Baseball Coaches Association All-East Regional Second Team and All-Northeast-10 Conference Second Team accolades.

Franklin Pierce (37-18) captured their third Northeast-10 Conference regular season title in four years this spring and followed that with their third consecutive Northeast-10 Championship title, which was the program’s fourth in five years. Franklin Pierce earned the second seed in the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship East Regional and hosted an NCAA regional for the fifth consecutive season.