The Stetson baseball team opens its most important series of the season tonight at Melching Field when the Hatters host Jacksonville to close the 2022 regular season.
 
Tonight's game is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. but, because of heavy rain forecast for Friday and Saturday, game times have been adjusted for those days. Friday's game is now scheduled for an 11 a.m. start and Saturday's season-finale is scheduled for a 10 a.m. first pitch.
 
For the Hatters (24-28, 8-19), the series is crucial if the team is going to have a chance to advance to the ASUN Tournament. Stetson needs to sweep the series from Jacksonville (26-23, 12-14) and get some help from FGCU to advance to next week's tournament in Fort Myers.
 
All the Hatters can control is the games against JU, which took two of three games from Stetson in April in Jacksonville.
 
The Hatters lead the all-time series 97-90-2 and Stetson has a 58-31-2 record against the Dolphins in DeLand, but that is all history. All three games between the teams earlier this year were close. Stetson took the opener 6-4 before JU recorded 2-0 and 5-4 victories in the last two games to take the series.
 
Freshman Dominic Stagliano (4-0, 3.30) will start the opener for the Hatters. It will be just his third start of the season and his first since March when he started consecutive games against Sacred Heart and Maine. He has pitched well in relief this year, earning a victory last weekend at Kennesaw State with 4.0 innings of work. He pitched in relief against Jacksonville in the first series, allowing three runs on six hits over 1.2 innings.
 
Jacksonville will counter with junior right-hander Mason Adams (5-4, 4.69) in the opener. He worked 7.1 innings against Stetson back on April 14, allowing four runs on six hits with 10 strikeouts, take the loss in the 6-4 Stetson victory.
 
In addition to the focus on getting into the ASUN Tournament, several Hatters are looking to reach possible career milestones. Nick DiPonzio is seven hits away from 100 for his career. DiPonzio suffered an injury last Friday
when he crashed into the wall in left at Kennesaw State. He was helped from the field and did not play in the rest of the
series or at USF on Tuesday.
 
Banks Griffith, who made a pair of starts in the KSU series and had four hits, and followed up with three hits on Tuesday at South Florida, is now three hits shy of 100 in his career. Cam Hill enters the weekend four way from 50 career stolen bases.
 
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.