Conference USA

There are a dozen games scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday this week, including a pair at ranked opponents, as WKU visits No. 2 Louisville and UTSA plays at No. 21 Baylor.
 
Three teams are currently tied for first place in the league standings and two of them will play at home this weekend, as Old Dominion welcomes fourth place Charlotte and Florida Atlantic hosts Rice.  No. 23 Southern Miss is the third squad tied for first and the Golden Eagles will play at WKU.  Rounding out the schedule of C-USA series’ this weekend are UTSA at Louisiana Tech, UAB at FIU and Middle Tennessee at Marshall in Charleston, W. Va.
 
CHARLOTTE
The 49ers won their second straight C-USA series, taking a pair of games from Louisiana Tech.  Charlotte moved to 5-1 in their six series in 2017 and the doubleheader split on Saturday evened the Niners back up at 3-3 in their double dips this season.  The 49ers also moved to 6-0 in Friday games in 2017 with a 13-7 victory.  Senior OF T.J. Nichting and senior IF Brett Netzer each collected at-least one hit in each game Saturday moving their hit streaks to eight.  Nichting finished just a double shy of the cycle in the 4-2 game two victory, going 3-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored.  Freshman IF Jackson Mims, who had three hits, three RBI and three runs scored in Friday’s win, extended his streak to seven after game one, but saw it come to an end in the nightcap.  Charlotte has scored 12 runs or more six times this season.
 
FIU
The Panthers won a pair of games at Rice to even their league record at 3-3.  Senior 1B JC Escarra played in both of FIU’s wins, going 4-for-7 with his fourth home run of the season, four RBI and three runs scored.  Junior IF Irving Lopez had two hits in game one Saturday and three hits in game two, giving him a team-high 12 multiple-hit games this season.  Senior RHP Chris Mourelle kept the Panthers in game two Saturday with a quality start, throwing six innings, allowing six hits, three earned runs and striking out five.  Freshman RHP Tyler Myrick pitched three scoreless innings in relief of Mourelle to pick up his team-leading third win.  Junior LHP Dominic LoBrutto, who fired 3.2 shutout innings of relief with a pair of strikeouts in the series finale, now has 23 strikeouts and just four walks in 31 innings pitched this season.  The Panthers will enter this week having won 12 of their last 16 games.
 
FLORIDA ATLANTIC
The Owls kept place in Conference USA play, moving to 5-1 on the season by winning two-of-three games at UAB.  Eight of the nine relievers that appeared in games allowed up one earned run or less, and of those position players that started at least two games, all but one had at least two hits.  They had 11 extra base hits and drew 25 walks and seven HBP.  Freshman OF Eric Rivera had a hit in every game last week, and three games with two RBI.  He hit a two-run home run at Miami, and had multi-run base knocks in each of the team’s two wins at UAB.  For the week, he hit .333 (4-for-12) with six total RBI, a double and a home run, and four runs scored.  Florida Atlantic is the only team in the conference with four players that have hit five or more home runs: junior OF David Miranda (six), sophomore SS Tyler Frank (five), freshman OF Gary Mattis (five) and senior 1B Esteban Puerta (five).
 
LOUISIANA TECH
The Bulldogs won the middle game of a three-game series at Charlotte over the weekend.  In the win, a 12-7 game one victory on Saturday, all nine players in the Louisiana Tech lineup registered at least one hit.  That is the second time this season the Bulldogs have accomplished that.  Senior OF Marshall Boggs blasted his second grand slam of the season in the win, becoming the first Bulldog since Devon Dageford in 2009 to hit two grand slams in a single season.  Boggs led LA Tech with four hits on the day, while also scoring three runs and taking over the team lead in RBI with 27 through 24 games.  The win 12 runs scored marked the ninth time this season that the Bulldogs have scored 10 or more runs, posting an 8-1 record in those games.  Senior RHP Nate Harris came on to pitch the final 2.2 innings and allowed just one hit, while striking out four over that stretch to picked up his C-USA-leading seventh save of the year.  In 25.1 innings pitched, holds a 1.05 ERA with 39 strikeouts and just three walks.
 
MARSHALL
The Thundering Herd had their six series winning streak in Conference USA play snapped after losing twice in three games at Southern Miss over the weekend.  Senior IF/OF Sam Finfer homered in each game of Friday’s doubleheader, providing the game-winner in game two with a solo shot in the top of the 10th inning.  He hit safely in all three games, totaling five hits with a double, two homers, three RBI and three runs scored.  Finfer is tied for the league lead with seven home runs on the season. Sophomore OF Shane Hanon was 7-for-13 (.538) over the weekend, notching his first career multiple home run game on Sunday, while scoring three times and driving in four runs.  Hanon is batting .455 through the first six conference games.
 
MIDDLE TENNESSEE
The Blue Raiders renewed their long-standing rivalry with WKU over the weekend, winning the middle game, but dropping the other two.  Senior SS Riley Delgado hit .611 last week (11-for-18), doubling in each game while driving in five runs and scoring three runs.  After hitting his first-career home run at FAU last Sunday he followed it up with his second-career homer Tuesday against Lipscomb.  Delgado is the first Blue Raider to hit home runs in consecutive games this season.  In game two of the series against WKU, tying a career-high with four hits, to go along with the game-winning RBI-single in the 10-9 Middle Tennessee win in extras.  In his first career start on Sunday, senior LHP Cody Puckett struck out a career-high 10 batters and scattered four hits in seven innings of work.  He became the third Blue Raider pitcher to post 10 or more strikeouts in a game this season, joining junior LHP Jake Wyrick and junior RHP Tyler Hasper.
 
 
OLD DOMINION
The Monarchs took two-of-three at UTSA this weekend and enter the week at 19-5, having won nine of its last 10 games.  Senior LHP Adam Bainbridge improved his overall record to 5-1 and lowered his ERA to 1.62 for the season with a strong showing in game two.  He allowed two runs in the first inning (one unearned) and then fired seven consecutive scoreless innings, finishing with five strikeouts and five hits scattered over 8.0 innings pitched.  Bainbridge has pitched at least 5.0 innings and has not allowed more than two earned runs in all six of his starts, including a 2-0 mark with a 1.65 ERA in his first two C-USA starts.  He has now struck out 28 batters on the season, while walking only eight.  Junior 2B Jared Young hit a team-high .526 last week (improving his overall average by 80 points, .219 to .289), recording a hit in all five games, including a three-hit game vs. Princeton and a four-hit game vs. UTSA.  He doubled three times, drove in six runs and scored seven times on the week.  Senior SS Zach Rutherford, who is batting .359 with a team-high 11 doubles, hit his first home run if the season (third in his career) in Saturday’s 9-5 win.
 
RICE 
Rice dropped the final two games over the weekend against FIU after claiming an 8-4 victory in the opener.  Five of the Owls’ last six losses have been by two runs or less.  On Sunday graduate student OF Darryn Sheppard knocked a grand slam home run, the program’s first since sophomore Ford Proctor in the C-USA Championship last season.  In four games last week, Sheppard, who joined Rice in January as a grad student in Global Affairs, went a combined 8-for-15 (.533) with a grand slam, three doubles and three runs scored.  True freshman RHP Matt Canterino is averaging 12.3 strikeouts per 9.0 innings pitched.  Earlier this season Canterino became only the second Owl since the national championship season of 2003 to record double-digit strikeouts in three-consecutive appearances.  On Saturday Rice played its fifth double-header of the season.
 
SOUTHERN MISS
Southern Miss took two-of-three from Marshall over the weekend and begin this week having won 10 of its last 11 games.  The Golden Eagles opened the series with a pair of extra-inning games in the doubleheader, marking the first time Southern Miss played free baseball in back-to-back games since March 26 and 29, 2002, losing to South Alabama (6-5) and Houston (3-2).  Southern Miss belted eight home runs in the Marshall series, the most they hit since the UTSA series in San Antonio, April 24-26, 2015.  Freshman OF Matt Wallner hit safely in each of the Marshall games and led the Golden Eagles in runs scored with six.  He was the third Southern Miss player to hit two home runs in a game this season, collecting that in opening game one on Friday.  He hit three homers in the doubleheader as he also notched one in the second game.  Sophomore RHP Nick Sandlin improved to 5-0 on the season out of the bullpen after throwing a season-high 4.1 innings in the Marshall series opener.  He tallied a career-high seven strikeouts as he limited the Herd to one hits, one batter reaching on an error and two walks down the stretch.  In 20 innings of work over nine relief appearances, Sandlin has limited foes to one unearned runs on eight hits and eight walks with 32 strikeouts.
 
UAB
The Blazers picked up one win in their three-game series with Florida Atlantic.  Sophomore OF Brewer Hicklen has extended his hitting streak to a career-best 13 games.  He had five hits in the series, including a double, a home run, two RBI and four runs scored.  Hicklen leads UAB with a .352 batting average, has a league-best five triples and carries a .659 slugging percentage (fourth in the conference).  Sophomore IF Carter Pheris hit his first home run of the season (third career) in the series finale.  He is batting .329 on the year.  Senior LHP Thomas Lowery earned his second straight win in the 6-3 game one victory0 Friday.  He pitched six innings, giving up seven hits, two runs, one walk, and striking out four coming off a complete game one-hitter five days earlier.
 
UTSA
The Roadrunners picked up a win in the series finale with Old Dominion after dropping the first two games.  Sophomore 2B Bryan Arias has extended his hit streak to a career-high 11 consecutive games.  He led UTSA with a .444 batting average last week (8-for-18) and also led the team in runs scored (7), home runs (2), total bases (15) and slugging percentage (.833), while adding a double and driving in five runs.  His second home run was a solo shot in the series finale that gave the Runners a 6-5 lead in a 9-5 win.  Junior RHP Chris Muller worked a career-high 7.2 innings and struck out a season-best seven batters to hand ODU its first conference loss on Sunday.  Muller has a 1.14 ERA this season with 31 strikeouts and just five walks in 23.2 innings pitched. 
 
WKU
WKU took two-of-three games at Middle Tennessee over the weekend.  Senior OF Thomas Peter had three multi-hit performances in four games last week, including two home runs in the Hilltoppers’ 10-3 victory Friday night at Middle Tennessee.  His four runs batted in in Friday’s game tie for the most in C-USA play this season.  Junior OF Colie Currie hit safely in all four games last week, while posting his team-best sixth multiple-RBI game.  In Sunday’s series-clinching 4-2 win, sophomore LHP Evan Acosta finished with one earned run and eight hits allowed in 7.2 innings pitched, with three strikeouts and zero walks.  He threw only 87 pitches - 65 of them strikes.  In junior LHP Ryan Thurston’s six starts, WKU boasts a 5-1 overall record.  He has not allowed more than four earned runs in any of those contests, while striking out at least five in every one.