Newark, NJ – After a couple of tough days in Tallahassee, the Stetson baseball team will return to action in ASUN play on Friday night, opening a three-game weekend series at NJIT.
The series will open on Friday with a 6 p.m. game at Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium. Saturday's game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. first pitch and Sunday's series finale will be at noon. Live stats during the series will be available at StetsonStats.com. There will be no video feed from the games at NJIT.
The Hatters (28-10, 4-2) come into the series after having dropped a pair of mid-week games at Florida State, but also on a three-game ASUN win streak. NJIT improved to 15-14 overall this year with a come-back win over Saint Peter's on Tuesday. The Highlanders are 3-6 in ASUN play, having earned one win in each of their first three ASUN series.
The 15 victories so far this year for NJIT is already more than the Highlanders posted in the entire 2017 season and the three ASUN victories is already the most the program has recorded in its third season in the league.
Stetson leads the all-time series against NJIT 6-0, but the final two games in 2017 were both one-run contests. Overall, the average score in the series has been 8.3 to 2.6.
Despite scoring 10 runs on Wednesday, the Hatters have continued to struggle offensively in recent weeks. The teams' 2018 batting average has dropped to .245, which ranks last in the ASUN. Only senior
Nico Torino, who is hitting .305 on the season, comes in to the weekend hitting better than .300 overall.
In two ASUN series so far, the Hatters have been led offensively by junior
Jacob Koos (.391) and senior
Austin Hale (.389), but none of the other Stetson hitters is batting better than .261.
While the Hatters have struggled offensively, the pitching has continued to be strong, with the exception of Wednesday's game at Florida State in which the Seminoles scored 16 earned runs thanks to hitting seven home runs to go with five doubles as part of 20 hits.
As a team, Stetson has a 2.71 overall ERA this year, which now ranks fourth nationally. The Hatters are still first nationally in hits allowed per nine innings (6.38) and are now third in WHIP (1.11) and fifth in strikeouts per nine innings (10.6). Stetson is fourth in total strikeouts with 398.
Amazingly, the Hatters have just three mid-week games remaining this year meaning that 15 of the remaining 18 games on the schedule are ASUN games. Barring injury, those games will all feature either junior
Logan Gilbert (6-1, 2.89), junior
Jack Perkins (5-2, 3.58) or sophomore
Mitchell Senger (5-1, 1.92) on the mound. That trio will be on the mound this weekend against NJIT.
The Highlanders are expected to counter with sophomore Jared Kasco (2-3, 2.95) on Friday and redshirt junior Sean Lubreski (2-2, 4.39) in the first two games of the series. NJIT has not yet decided on a starter for Sunday's series finale. In his eight starts this year, Kasco has averaged just over 4 1/3 innings of work while Lubreski has averaged just more than five innings per game.
Freshman infielder Julio Marcano leads the Highlanders offensively, batting .349 on the year. Senior outfielder Jesse Uttendorffer is also having a solid season, hitting .327 on the season.
Like Stetson, which has 15 home runs this year, the Highlanders don't hit with a lot of power, having hit just eight home runs in 29 games this year. While they don't hit a lot of home runs, they also don't strikeout much, averaging just 6.75 Ks per game.
About Stetson University Athletics: Stetson University's Athletics Program has a vision of developing a culture of champions athletically, academically and within the community. This vision is accomplished through a mission of recruiting and developing student-athletes, coaches and staff, creating a culture of champions, within and outside of competition. The department operates with five core values: Championship Culture, Integrity, Excellence, Pride/Tradition and Leadership. To learn more about the Vision, Mission and Core Values for Stetson Athletics, visit GoHatters.com and click on Mission Statement under the Inside Athletics tab.
