Marshall University Athletics
@HerdBaseball Hosts Charlotte in Final Regular Season Weekend
5/17/2017 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The Marshall baseball team welcomes the Charlotte 49ers to Appalachian Power Park for the final weekend of the regular season. The three-game set begins Thursday at 4 p.m. The series continues Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m.
HAVE YOU HERD?
Senior Sam Finfer hit two home runs this past weekend at Louisiana Tech to move into the top-5 all-time in a single-season. He is currently tied with assistant coach Victor Gomez for the fifth-most in a single season. Gomez had 18 homers in 2009. The most home runs in a single-season for Marshall is 23 held by Jason Brooks in 2001. Finfer ranks sixth in the country for home runs and homers per game. He also ranks eighth in slugging percentage (.719) and ninth for total bases (138).
Sophomore pitcher Wade Martin has been the go-to guy this season for the Herd. Martin has started in all 13 games that he has appeared in, tied for first in Conference USA among pitchers. He ranks 20th in the NCAA. Martin boasts a 3-3 record and a 4.31 ERA. He ranks sixth in C-USA with 73 strikeouts, while leading the league in strikeouts looking with 29.
Redshirt junior relief pitcher Matt Reed is the first guy out of the bullpen this season for head coach Jeff Waggoner. Reed leads the Herd with six wins and five saves. If he finishes the season leading both categories, he will become the first pitcher since Brendon Bump did so in 2005. Bump had a team-high three wins and had three saves. Reed has made 23 appearances this season with a 5.21 ERA and 34 strikeouts.
THE SCENARIOS TO BILOXI
Marshall (25-26, 12-15 C-USA) still controls its own destiny to the 2017 Conference USA Baseball Championships in Biloxi, Miss. The Thundering Herd will have to sweep Charlotte (29-22, 15-12) this weekend to clinch a spot into the tournament. The other key scenario for the Herd is to win at least one more game than FIU (28-25, 12-15) does this weekend. FIU hosts WKU (16-36, 6-21) and owns the tiebreaker over Marshall.
SCOUTING THE 'NINERS
Charlotte enters its final weekend of Conference USA action having lost five of its last six games in league play. The 49ers dropped two-out-of-three against UTSA last weekend and was swept by Rice the week earlier. Charlotte is currently in sixth place in the C-USA standings.
Charlotte came from behind to defeat Winthrop on Tuesday night, 11-9. The 'Niners scored all 11 runs between the fifth and eighth innings. Hunter Jones finished with a perfect 4-for-4 with three RBIs. T.J. Nichting had three hits and scored twice.
#OneHerd
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