UNO Notes | HBU Notes | SLC Weekly Notes (March 17)
NEW ORLEANS, La. – New Orleans Privateers baseball will look for their first Southland Conference victory this weekend when they make trip west to face I-10 rival Houston Baptist. A rare afternoon Friday first pitch will take place at 2:00 p.m.
The Privateers (5-12, 0-3 Southland) enter the contest following a 7-3 victory over crosstown rival Tulane on Wednesday night. In his first collegiate start freshman
Hunter Medine (2-0, 0.00 ERA) threw five innings of no-hit baseball, leading a strong Privateer pitching effort that held Green Wave bats without a hit for the first 7.2 innings. At the plate Privateers catcher
Brian Dixon led the way with four RBI and two hits, including a two-RBI double in the bottom of the first to extend the Privateers lead to 4-0.
The Privateers enter the contest hitting .252 on the season, with 55 RBI and 5 home runs. Freshman outfielder
Hezekiah Randolph leads the team in batting average (.345), home runs (3), RBI (14), total bases (33) and slugging percentage (.569). Randolph is tied for third in the league in home runs, and ranks third in slugging percentage. Friday afternoon Randolph will look to extend his current 13-game hitting streak, and collect his seventh multi-hit game of the season. Two other Privateers are hitting over .300 this season, with
Samuel Capielano batting .318, and
Reese Kanter batting .308.
Coming into the weekend the Privateers rank fifth in sacrifice bunts laid in the conference with 20 on the season, including five by Capielano. The 20 sacrifice bunts before April are a dramatic improvement on last season's total of 24 for the entire season.
Coach
Ron Maestri will send out the same pitching rotation for the fifth consecutive weekend.
Alex Smith (0-3, 6.15 ERA) gets the nod on Friday night looking to build on his mid-week success against the Green Wave, where he held the Green Wave without a hit in the sixth inning and had a strike out. Saturday afternoon right-hander
Darron McKigney (0-3, 5.40 ERA) will get the start, also looking to build on a scoreless inning thrown on Wednesday against the Green Wave. Closing out the weekend on the hill will be right hander
Nick Halliday (2-1, 2.60 ERA).
Houston Baptist (9-8, 1-2 Southland) host the Privateers having lost three of their last four games, following a 9-3 loss at Baylor on Wednesday. The Huskies have played a challenging schedule to prepare for life in the Southland, with games at Baylor (9-3 loss), a four-game series with Kansas (lost 3-of-4), and a trip to College Station to take on nationally-ranked Texas A&M (5-1 loss) in non-conference play.
Despite that challenging slate, HBU is batting just shy of .300 on the season (.299) which ranks them third in the league. Five Husky hitters who have played in ten or more games are batting over .300 for the season. Freshman catcher Samm Wiggins is leading the way, batting .349 this season. Two Huskies have driven in double-figure runs this season with senior infielder C.J. Jarvis and junior outfielder Zach Nehrir each having ten RBI apiece.
On the hill, the Huskies have a team ERA of 4.18, and have struck out 110 batters while walking 37. Opponents are hitting .281 though against HBU, the third worst opposing batting average in the conference. Similar to the Privateers, the Huskies will throw their most successful pitcher from a numbers standpoint on Sunday. Right hander Curtis Jones ranks sixth in the Southland with opponents only hitting .206 against him on the season.
The weekend series will be the first Southland road trip for the Privateers, and the first time the two programs have met on the diamond. Friday's and Sunday's contests are set for 2:00, with the middle game on Saturday set for 1:00 p.m.
Free audio of all New Orleans Privateers baseball will be available on UNOPrivateers.com with pregame starting ten minutes prior to the scheduled first pitch of each contest. Friday afternoon's game will also have video available courtesy of Houston Baptist, at HBUHuskies.com.
Probable Pitching Matchups
Friday:
Alex Smith (RHP 0-3, 6.15 ERA) vs. Taylor Wright (RHP 2-2, 6.35 ERA)
Saturday:
Darron McKigney (RHP 0-3, 5.40 ERA) vs. Ryan Lower (RHP 2-1, 2.88 ERA)
Sunday:
Nick Halliday (RHP 2-1, 2.60 ERA) vs. Curtis Jones (RHP, 1-1 2.67 ERA)
