Marshall University Athletics
Baseball Ready For MAC Opener
3/25/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Baseball Ready For MAC Opener
3/25/2005
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. - The Thundering Herd baseball team will open up its final season in the Mid-American Conference playing host to the Eastern Michigan Eagles in a three-game series set to start on Saturday at University Heights.
On Saturday, the teams will square off in a doubleheader starting at 11 a.m.. Both games on Saturday will be nine innings. The series will finish up on Sunday with a nine-inning game set for a 1 p.m. start.
Over the last week, baseball has gone 3-1, improving its overall record to 5-12. Last Saturday, MU swept St. Bonaventure in the home-opening doubleheader. Chris Koutsavlis (Pittsburgh, PA) and David Slovak (Louisville, KY) each pitched complete games in the doubleheader to help with the sweep.
Koutsavlis, whose nine-inning complete game performance was the first of his career, was awarded the Mid-American Conference East Division Pitcher of the Week. In the outing, Koutsavlis struck out five and walked one batter.
After falling to the Bonnies by a 7-6 score on Sunday, Marshall traveled to Duke. Originally scheduled for two games, the teams only played one due to the weather. In their game on Tuesday, the Herd downed the Blue Devils, 8-3.
Freshman Andrew Hancock (Ashland, KY) was given his first start and responded with the best outing of his young career. He pitched six innings, giving up three runs, one of which was earned. Hancock got his first career win in the game.
On the other side of the ball, the offense has also been heating up as of late. In the second game against St. Bonaventure last weekend, the Herd equaled its season high in hits with 14. The 11 runs scored in that game was also a season high. In the final two games of the SBU series, MU notched four home runs, nearly doubling its total for the year as only five home runs were registered by the team heading into the weekend.
Joe Glevenyak (West Palm Beach, FL) had a stellar series against the Bonnies, going 5-10 with two home runs and five RBI's. He now leads the team in RBI's with 12. Junior Adam Frederick (Franklin, PA) also had a solid week, going 8-16 to raise his season average to .269. He scored six runs and batted in three in the four games played over the week.
The Eagles come into the weekend with a record of 4-13. Last weekend, the Eagles fell in two of three games to Bowling Green. EMU started 2005 off with two wins at South Florida, however since that time, have only managed to more wins, one against BGSU and one at Missouri.
EMU's offense is led by Brett Witczak, who is batting .333 with 12 hits and six RBI's. Derek Lehrman and Matt Moffett lead the Eagles with 13 RBI's each. On the mound, Eastern Michigan is led by Matt Dimich. Dimich leads the Eagles in several categories including innings pitched (25.0), ERA (3.24) and batting average against (.216).
Eastern Michigan holds a 12-3-1 advantage in the series. Last year, the Eagles swept MU in a three-game series in Ypsilanti. After winning the first two games by one run, including one in ten innings, EMU took the final game of the series by a 7-3 score.
In 2004, the Eagles went 32-27 and 14-10 in the MAC, good for second in the West Division.
Saturday's doubleheader will start at 11 a.m. with 30 minutes in between game one and two. On Sunday, the final game of the series will start at 1 p.m..
