Conference USA 

April 3 Baseball Notebook

2017 Baseball Stats (PDF)

Interactive Statistics

All 12 Conference USA teams are in action on Tuesday with five games against opponents that have been nationally-ranked in recent weeks (Old Dominion at No. 18 Virginia, Rice at No. 25 Houston and Mississippi vs. No. 17 Southern Miss in Pearl, Miss.).  There also matchups against Big 12 foe West Virginia (Marshall) and SEC teams Tennessee (Middle Tennessee) and No. 22 Mississippi State (FIU). 
 
After a six-game Wednesday, conference play returns on Friday.  League leader Southern Miss hosts FIU, while the next two teams in the standings are on the road, as Old Dominion goes to Middle Tennessee and Florida Atlantic visits Charlotte.  Also, WKU plays at UTSA, Marshall visits UAB and Louisiana Tech travels to Rice.
 
CHARLOTTE
Charlotte went 1-2 at Old Dominion, as the usually strong Charlotte bats were held in check by Monarch pitching.  Sunday’s 3-0 defeat marked the first time the 49ers have been shutout in back-to-back games since April of 1990.  In Charlotte’s 3-1 win in game one Saturday, sophomore RHP Colton Laws improved to 4-0, throwing seven innings, allowing one run on just four hits with five strikeouts.  The 49ers win ended ODU’s seven-game home winning streak as Charlotte moved to a perfect 7-0 in series-openers this season.  Senior OF Zach Jarrett has extended his hitting streak to seven games.  He is now batting .314 on the season.  Junior RHP Zach Flanagan, Sunday’s tough-luck loser, holds a 30-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio this season and has a 2.52 ERA.
 
FIU
The Panthers won their second consecutive conference series, taking a pair of games from UAB.  FIU has now won six of its seven series this season and it has moved into a tie for fourth place in the league standings.  After starting the season out of the bullpen, freshman RHP Nick MacDonald leads the team with a 4-0 record and a 2.05 ERA since moving to the starting rotation.  MacDonald is second on the team with 30 strikeouts.  Senior IF Nick Day, who led FIU with 10 home runs last season, hit his first three homers of the season over the weekend against UAB.  Day hit two home runs in Friday's game and another Sunday.  Day was 5 for 9 in the series with three homers and five RBI, while scoring seven runs.  Senior C Zack Soria continues his torrid start throwing out would-be base stealers. Soria has now caught 12 of 22 baserunners.  Senior OF Kenny Meimerstorf has hit safely in five straight games and is batting .363 this season.
 
FLORIDA ATLANTIC
The Owls sit just one game back in the C-USA standings after taking a series over Rice for the first time in school history.  The FAU bullpen starred once again, with just one earned run allowed in 8.2 combined innings, led by two scoreless stints covering four innings from sophomore RHP Kyle Marman.  He struck out six, gave up three hits and walked only one batter.  Junior DH Jared Shouppe returned from injury and was an immediate key contributor, as he reached base in every game in the series.  He walked twice in the opener, doubled in a run during game two, and went 3-for-5 in the finale with four RBI.  The clutch hit Sunday was a two-out, three-run home run to begin the scoring in what would turn out to be an 8-2 FAU victory.  He added singles in each of his last two at-bats and reached base during the weekend at a clip of .429.  Junior LHP Jake Miednik tossed seven innings in Sunday’s series-clincher, allowing two runs on three hits with six K’s.  Sunday’s win was career victory No. 300 for head coach John McCormack.
 
LOUISIANA TECH
The Bulldogs were 2-2 last week, posting a 12-3 victory over regional rival ULM and then winning the series finale vs. UTSA, 6-0.  In his first career start, senior RHP Nate Harris tossed a complete game shutout, striking out eight and did not walk a batter.  UTSA, who had the highest team batting average in Conference USA, did not register its first hit off of Harris until the sixth inning.  Harris is the only player in C-USA who has three wins and a save this season (He also has a league-leading seven saves).  His 16.7 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranks second in college baseball.  Junior C Brent Diaz, the team’s leading hitter at .382, has hit safely in his last six games, while senior 3B Chase Lunceford has extended his streak of reaching base safely to all 28 games played this season.
 
MARSHALL
The Thundering Herd went 1-2 against Middle Tennessee, taking the series finale, 8-6.  He ranks second in the conference and 31st overall in the NCAA in homers.  Finfer also has an eight game hit streak.  Sophomore OF Shane Hanon extended his hit streak to nine games over the weekend.  It is the second longest hit streak for the Thundering Herd this season, trailing only Tyler Ratliff's 12-game hit streak.  Freshman RHP Hunter Sexton picked up his second win of the season on Sunday, throwing four nearly-perfect innings of relief, allowing one hit and striking out five without allowing a walk.
 
MIDDLE TENNESSEE
The Blue Raiders posted a series win at Marshall by sweeping a Saturday doubleheader.  Sophomore OF/RHP Austin Dennis hit .333 (7-for-21) over the span of five games last week with two doubles, a triple, a home run and eight RBI.  Dennis went 4-of-8 with two doubles, a triple, and home run in the Blue Raiders two wins Saturday in the doubleheader at Marshall.  To go along with his hitting, Dennis picked up his second career save at Belmont, and his first career win in game two of the Marshall doubleheader, after hitting a two-run triple in the ninth.  Sophomore 3B Drew Huff had a pair of multiple-hit games in the Marshall series, while sophomore OF Blake Benefield scored in each game and added five total hits vs. the Herd.  In his second career start on Sunday, senior LHP Cody Puckett had a solid outing, throwing six innings, allowing three runs on six hits and striking out seven.
 
OLD DOMINION
The Monarchs won their seventh consecutive weekend series this season by taking two-of-three against Charlotte, raising Old Dominion’s overall record to 22-6.  Senior LHP Adam Bainbridge became the first Monarch since 2013 to throw a complete-game shutout, allowing four hits and one walk while striking out seven.  Bainbridge retired 10 of the last 11 batters he faced to earn the victory and improve to 6-1 with a 1.31 ERA on the season, including a 3-0 mark with a 1.07 ERA in C-USA play.  In Sunday’s 3-0 victory, freshman RHP John Wilson allowed just three hits and walked none in seven innings, while striking out four.  He settled into a dominant groove in the middle innings, retiring 17 straight from the second to seventh innings.  Overall, the Monarch pitching staff tossed 23 consecutive scoreless innings to end the series and held Charlotte to a team average of .163 during the three games.
 
RICE
Rice dropped two-of-three games at Florida Atlantic over the weekend.  The 3-2 defeat in the series opener marked the sixth loss out of seven that was by two runs or less.  Junior 3B Dane Myers hit safely in each game at FAU, with an extra-base hit in each contest.  He registered two doubles, a triple and drove in a pair of runs.  Sophomore C Dominic DiCaprio also hit safely in each game, launching his team-leading fourth home run of the season on Sunday.  Junior RHP Glenn Otto earned his first victory of the season in Saturday’s 5-4 win, striking out four in 2.2 shutout innings to close the game.  Junior OF Ryan Chandler singled to drive in the winning run in the top of the ninth inning. 
 
SOUTHERN MISS
Southern Miss outscored WKU 24-2 in the three-game set in Bowling Green, sweeping its second-straight road league series to start the year.  The team has tied its best start in program history through 29 games at 24-5 (both 2004 and 2005 also had that start), as they have won 15 of the last 16 games and captured its last seven road contests.  The Golden Eagles have equaled their best-ever start in C-USA play with an 8-1 mark, matching last year’s beginning over nine games.  Southern Miss continues to use the long ball, having collected 43 home runs this season. The team has hit at least one round-tripper in 21 games this season, including 18 over the last eight games of which they have tallied at least one in each of those contests over this stretch. The team tied a season-high with five Sunday at WKU.  Senior OF Daniel Keating hit two of those five home runs in that contest, marking the fourth time this season a Golden Eagle has hit two long balls in a game this season. Keating has four of his five homers on the year over the last eight games.  Sophomore 2B Storme Cooper hit his first home run of his career this week, coming in his 175th at bat, and then added another shot in the finale at WKU Sunday.  Of the 30 runs scored in five games last week for the Golden Eagles, 21 came after two were out in the inning.  Sophomore RHP J.C. Keys threw the team’s first complete game of the season Sunday as he limited WKU to just one hit and two walks with a career-high seven strikeouts.
 
UAB
The Blazers posted a win in the series opener at FIU before dropping the final two games of the series.  The 8-5 win on Friday night marked the first time this season that UAB had multiple home runs in a game, as sophomore OF Brewer Hicklen, sophomore IF Carter Pheris and junior 3B Price Visintainer each went deep.  Hicklen, who leads the team in batting at .350, pushed his hitting streak to 17 straight games with an RBI double on Sunday.  Pharis now has two-or-more hits in 12 of his last 16 games to raise his season batting average to .347.  Visintainer had two hits in all three games of the series.  Sophomore SS Antonio Ralat is on a career-best five-game hitting streak.  The Blazers posted double-digit hits in all three games at FIU, registering 10 more hits than the Panthers.
 
UTSA
The Roadrunners captured its first Conference USA series win of 2017 by taking the first two games of a three-game set at Louisiana Tech.  Sophomore 2B Bryan Arias had a career day at No. 21 Baylor on March 28 with five hits, four runs scored, two home runs and seven RBI.  His effort helped UTSA pick up its third win this season over a nationally ranked opponent (the most in program history) and became the 15th player in school history to register a program-best five hits in a single game.  On the week, Arias led the team in runs scored (seven), home runs (three), RBI (nine), total bases (17) and slugging percentage (1.000) and was second in hits (seven) and batting average (.412).  Senior IF C.J. Pickering has now hit safely in his last nine games.  Junior RHP Tyler GIovanni went a season-high seven innings in his outing in game two Saturday and helped UTSA to its first series win in Conference USA this year, holding LA Tech batters to a .192 batting average.  UTSA totaled four double plays on Friday night to match the program record of double plays turned in a single game.  The last time any Roadrunners squad accomplished the feat was back on April 3, 2010 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
 
WKU
WKU dropped all three games to league-leading Southern Miss over the weekend.  Senior OF Thomas Peter hit his sixth home run of the season in Sunday’s finale.  Five of his round-trippers have come in conference play, which ties him for second in the league.  Junior OF Colie Currie has reached base safely in eight straight games and Saturday marked his 10th multiple-hit game of the year.  Currie reached base via hit or walk in 8-of-12 plate appearances. Over the past 16 games, he has raised his season batting average from .213 to .320.  As a part of the "Vs. Cancer" event, WKU raised nearly $3,200 via online donations on the team's fundraising page.  Following the final out of Saturday’s game, 15 of the Hilltoppers' players and coaches had their heads shaved by volunteers from local McKinney's Barber Shop for the cause.