The Stetson baseball team makes its return to Melching Field tonight, opening a three-game series against ASUN rival Liberty.
 
Game times this weekend are set for 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with a noon start slated on Sunday.
 
Messod Bendayan will be on the call for all three games. He will be joined by Evan Weston on Friday night and by Victor Anderson over the weekend.
 
The Hatters (19-21, 5-13) will be looking to build on the successes of Tuesday night's 12-4 victory over No. 3 Miami to help get themselves back into contending position in the race for the ASUN Tournament. Liberty is one of the teams Stetson will be trying to catch in the East Division.
 
The Flames (26-13, 12-6) coming into the weekend off an 8-1 loss at North Carolina on Wednesday. Liberty has won eight of its last nine games in ASUN play, including sweeps of FGCU and North Florida and a series victory at Kennesaw State.

Stetson took two of the three games between the teams earlier this year in Lynchburg, and it took a ­­ninth inning rally in the opener to prevent the Hatters from earning a sweep.
Cam Hill led the Hatters in the earlier series against Liberty, batting .538 over the three games with six RBI. Daniel Labrador also had a productive weekend, batting .500. The Stetson pitching staff posted a 2.70 ERA in the three games, surrendering just eight runs despite allowing 13 walks over the weekend.

The all-time series between the Hatters and Flames is currently tied at five wins each. This will be the first regular season ASUN series between the Hatters and Flames in DeLand. The teams played two games in the 2019 ASUN Tournament and, before Liberty joined the ASUN, single games in 1982 and 1991.

The Hatters will try to continue to swing the bats in the same fashion as they did in Miami where they banged out a season-high 19 hits against the Hurricanes. That was the most in a game for Stetson since posting a pair of 20-hit games in March of 2017 against Florida (3/21) and NJIT (3/31).

Among those 19 hits, sophomore Camden Traficante had a career-high five hits and reached base six times overall. It was the first five-hit game for a Stetson player since Jacob Koos had five at USF on April 26, 2017, or exactly five years earlier.

Traficante is the 13th Stetson player to have five hits in a game since Ned French set the program record with six hits against Charleston on May 9, 1998. Only three players - Frank Corr, Casey Frawley and Robert Crews - have had two five-hit games since French set the program record.

Liberty recent success in conference play has been due in part to the hitting of designated hitter Brady Gulakowski. He became the first Flame to hit three home runs in a game in 15 years in Liberty's win over North Florida last Friday. The senior went 4-for-4 with eight RBI and four runs scored in the 22-4 victory over the Ospreys.

Gulakowski's nine home runs this year is second on the team behind Derek Orndorff, who has 13 of the 44 home runs hit by the Flames this year. Liberty comes into the weekend hitting .271 on the season.

Stetson will counter with its regular weekend rotation of sophomore Nick Durgin (1-3, 3.93) on Friday, graduate Chris Gonzalez (0-3. 6.03) on Saturday and sophomore Cole Stallings (5-3, 3.90) on Sunday. Durgin threw four solid innings in the opener against Liberty in the first series, allowing a run on six hits, and he was backed by Gonzalez, who threw four innings as well, allowing two runs on five hits. Stallings had one of his best outings of the year, blanking the Flames over six innings on just three hits.

Liberty's weekend rotation is expected to start with freshman left-hander Garrett Horn (5-1, 2.06) tonight, followed by senior right-hander Dylan Cumming (4-1, 3.06) on Saturday and junior left-hander Joe Adametz (3-2, 2.36) on Sunday. Stetson saw Horn in relief in the first series and managed just two hits in five innings against him. Cumming did not pitch in the first series and Adametz held Stetson to one run on six hits over five innings in the opening game.

Prior to Saturday's game, the 2021 class of the Stetson Athletics Hall of Fame will be recognized and it will also be Senior Day, so plan to arrive early as we honor the seniors for their contributions to Stetson baseball.
 
About Stetson University Athletics: Stetson University's Athletics Program is driven by a shared purpose. It is what inspires, motivates and binds us together. More than a task, a reason for being. THE HATTER PURPOSE is to create and provide an experience of a lifetime through teamwork and relationships to achieve excellence. This purpose is achieved through five Core Values: Communication, Integrity, Excellence, Value People and Commitment. To learn more about the HATS program and our Core Values, visit GoHatters.com/HATS. Get in on the conversation on social media by following Stetson Athletics on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For video content, visit our YouTube channels: Stetson Hatters, Stetson Athletics and, for live events, Hatter Vision.