NEW ORLEANS, La. – The New Orleans Privateers baseball team (1-2) starts up an eight-game home stand on Friday in hosting a weekend series against the South Alabama Jaguars (1-3) at Zephyr Field. The first installment of the series is set for Friday at 6:30 p.m.
New Orleans is very familiar with their weekend opponent in South Alabama. The two teams have played each other 145 times with the Jaguars holding an 87-58 overall lead in the series. South Alabama swept a three-game set from the Privateers last season and is on an active six-game winning streak versus New Orleans entering the weekend.
The Privateers are coming off a solid showing on the mound to open the weekend, especially out of the bullpen. In two games against LSU and one against Southern, New Orleans relievers registered a 0.75 ERA while holding opponents to one earned run in 12.0 innings of relief.
Darron McKigney led the way out of the pen, by throwing 4.2 scoreless innings without giving up a hit in two appearances.
Against LSU, the Privateers bats struggled through the first two games, but New Orleans exploded for nine runs on 14 hits in their first win of the season against Southern. The nine runs bested the Privateers' game-high scoring output from the entire 2013 season.
Freshman Sam Capielano made an early impact at the plate with four hits and four RBI in his collegiate debut weekend. Senior
Reese Kanter led the club with five hits on the weekend, and had a 3-for-3 day at the plate against Southern.
The Jaguars enter play off a 5-0 loss to Alabama State. Prior to that, the Jaguars opened their weekend by dropping two of three against Tennessee Tech. Last season, the Jaguars won 43 regular season games and had a 20-10 record in Sun Belt play. South Alabama made the NCAA tournament with an at-large bid.
South Alabama faces the early task of replacing a lot of key pieces off of their 2013 regional appearance. The Jaguars have 20 newcomers to the program and only return three regulars, and lost their leading returning hitter, Cole Billingsley to an arm injury before the season started.
Logan Kirkland had a strong opening week for the Jaguars at the plate after returning off an injury last season that limited his action to just four games. Kirkland hit .375 (6-for-16) and scored three runs.
On the mound, the Jaguars return Matt Bell from their weekend starting rotation for this season. Bell is a pre-season All-Sun Belt conference selection, but he struggled in his 2014 debut while giving up eight hits and four runs over 5.1 innings in the season opener last Friday vs. Tennessee Tech.
First pitch for the opening game of the series will be at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 21. Saturday's game will begin at 2 p.m., and Sunday will have a 1 p.m. start. All games will be available on UNOPrivateers.com.
