University of Connecticut Athletics
Baseball Looks for First Win at The Citadel
2/23/2001 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The University of Connecticut baseball team will be in search of its first win this season as it heads to Charleston, SC, this Saturday and Sunday to face The Citadel. Saturday's doubleheader is set to begin at 1 p.m., while the two will face Sunday at noon. UConn enters 0-3 on the year after being swept by UNC-Greensboro in the years opening series. After a mid-week affair with St. John's the Bulldogs record stands at 6-4. The Citadel will be the second straight Southern Conference school the Huskies will face with UConn being 12-11 against members of the conference all-time.
Scouting The Citadel
Already this week has been a good one for The Citadel. Starting with picking up a 15-2 win against Tennessee on Sunday
things kept improving as the Bulldogs again won big on Wednesday evening in an 18-3 victory over St. John's. Also, on
Tuesday of this week, Dallas McPherson was named to Street and Smith's Baseball All-America team. Overall, The Citadel
will enter the weekend with a record of 6-4 with just one of those losses coming at home (North Carolina State, 13- 4,
2/17/01). They return 18 letterwinners and five position players from last year's team that finished 39-20 in splitting the
Southern Conference regular season title.
Prior to the season McPherson was selected to Baseball America's All-America first team, he returns to the squad after posting an 8-1 record with a 3.07 ERA, while also hitting .378 including 9 homers and 27 RBI in 2000. He will return to action after serving a one game suspension after he and Tennessee catcher Javi Herrera were ejected for fighting during Sunday's game which led to a bench clearing brawl.
Baseball America also honored Philip Hartig as he was selected to the second team All-America list. Hartig hit a team leading .393 last season with 14 homeruns and 86 RBI. Already this season he has belted 15 homers to lead the Bulldogs in the department.
To date, Jason Randall is leading the team in hitting boasting a .412 average with 14 hits on 34 at bats. Randall has picked things up lately after starting the season off with three hits in the first five games he has since collected 11 in the last five including a 3-5 performance against Maryland on Feb 16. This has been the case for the entire squad though. In the first five games the Bulldogs combined for 32 hits and have produced 64 in the last five including 35 in the last two contests alone.
As far as pitching goes, Eric Talbert has emerged early working 15 innings allowing 11 hits for a 1.80 ERA. Randy Corn also leads the effort as he has two saves to his credit this season in striking out a team leading 16 batters.
Series with The Citadel
The Citadel leads the all-time series with UConn, 1-2, as the two teams met for the first time during the 1999 season. That
series was held March 6-7 inside Jospeh P. Riley Jr. Park with the opening game being UConn's only win.
In game one, Scott Berney threw a complete game five hitter, leading the Huskies to a 2-1 victory. UConn was held scoreless until the top of ninth inning. Glenn Katz led off the frame with a single and then advanced to second on a passed ball. Katz was able to score on a Clarke Caudill double. After Brian Packin grounded out, Brian Esposito singled to right field, plating Caudill for the go-ahead run. The Citadel rallied in the bottom of the ninth putting runners on first and second. With two outs Berney closed the book, getting The Citadel's Aaron Haigler to ground out. Berney completed the game throwing 108 pitches allowing no earned runs. The ninth inning was the turning point in the second game as well. Down 2-1, Connecticut forced extra innings as Willy Mercado led off with a double and scored when Joe Kagerer singled to center field. In the 12th, Haigler redeemed himself, singling to center, scoring Chris Morris ending the game with a 3-2 win. Despite outhitting The Citadel 9-8, UConn dropped its second consecutive decision to the Bulldogs, falling 9-4 in the rubber match. Brian Tisbert led off the game with a single and eventually would score on a Brian Wiley error. That was the last lead the Huskies would see as the Bulldogs exploded in the bottom of the second with six runs on just four hits as they were aided by two UConn errors. The Citadel never looked back while the Huskies used six more pitchers allowing two runs in the third and one more in the fifth. In the sixth inning, Cy Hess singled in Willy Mercado and then in the ninth, Glenn Katz blasted a two-run homer to conclude the scoring for the Huskies.
UConn Recap
Last weekend the Huskies began the 106th season in the history of the program with a three-game series at UNC-
Greensboro with the Spartans sweeping the set.
In the first game the Huskies fell victim to a lack of offense in what turned out to be a 2-0 loss. No UConn players advanced to third and in all seven runners were left on base.
UNCG got all the scoring it would need as the Spartans Doug Schutt singled to left center in the bottom of the first. Schutt would advance to second on the only stolen base of the game before making it to third when Chris Mittendorf grounded out to UConn pitcher Pat Sperone. Nick Lockhart, who won UNCG's first game of the year at North Caroina A&T on a three-run homer and a grand slam on successive at bats, drove in the Spartans first run with a single to right field. The only other score the game came in part to a Joe Kagerer miscue in the third, which allowed UNCG's Jay Maule to reach with a Schutt bunt moving Maule into scoring position before a Shane Schumaker single to right field brought him across the plate.
Things didn't get much better in the second games as a bases-loaded walk and a Justin Lee three-run double to left in the bottom of the third accounted for a four-run inning in a scoreless game up to that point as UNCG went on to a 10-1 win. UConn's Jeff Fulchino issued six walks throughout four innings, four of which came in the third which was led off by UNCG's Doug Schutt and Shane Shumaker getting on base before Fulchino's wild pitch moved both into scoring position. Fulchino walked the next two batters before Lee's three-run double began to put things out of reach UNCG added one in the fourth and doubled its score in the sixth by adding five runs when Schumaker had a three- run double and Chris Mittendorf lifted a homer over the right field wall. UConn's best opportunity to come away with a victory came in the closing game, which saw the Huskies facing a five-run deficit heading into the final inning before coming up short, 9-8, despite a furious rally.
Down 9-4 with one out already in the ninth, Joe Kagerer and Mike Scott began the surge hitting back-to-back singles. From there Ryan Treat and Cy Hess coaxed two straight walks from UNCG relief pitcher Ted Toler. Joe Gorrie reached on a fielding error by UNCG left fielder, Chris Cook, before Dan Trubia plated Treat on a bases- loaded RBI single. Brian Tisbert brought the Huskies to within one run with a sacrifice fly to center field off the Spartans fourth pitcher of the game, Darin Philines. With runners at the corners, Michael Tripaldi hit a long fly ball into left for the final out.
Walk This Way
A look at the statistics for the BIG EAST following the first weekend of play shows that UConn's Cy Hess leads the league
in walks by coaxing five from UNC-Greensboro pitchers over the opening weekend as he is averaging 1.67 per game. On his
career, Hess has 39 and is now 19 shy of cracking on to the school's all-time list. Currently Dennis Dwyer (1991-94) appears
last on the list of the Huskies best with 58.
Rough Start
When the University of Connecticut baseball team opened the 2001 season last weekend at UNC-Greensboro it marked the
earliest beginning to a schedule in school history. However, only once last season did the Huskies ever drop three
consecutive games. It was also the first time the Huskies had been swept in a three-game series since the 1998 season when
Seton Hall did it March 28 and 29.
Looking Ahead
After this weekend, the Huskies will head south for the final time this season as UConn travels to Athens, GA, to face
15th-ranked Georgia. The Bulldogs nearly knocked off top-ranked Georgia Tech on Wednesday as the Yellow Jackets came
up with four unearned runs in the ninth to rally past Georgia, 10-8, before a Foley Field record crowd of 4,058. That being
the only loss the Bulldogs have suffered this season, Georgia's record is 3-1. This weekend they will host Birmingham
Southern before taking on Georgia State on Tuesday. The trip to Athens is part of a 16-game season opening road swing as
UConn's first home game of the season is set for March 22 against Holy Cross.
BIG EAST among Nation's Elite
Prior to the season, Baseball America tabbed the BIG EAST Conference as the fifth best in the nation. Seven league school's
appeared on the publications preseason top 100: Notre Dame (9), Rutgers, (35), Virginia Tech, (40), Seton Hall, (69),
Connecticut (86) and Boston College (100). The total ranks behind the traditionally strong SEC (11), Pac-10 (8) and the
BIG 12 (8).
UConn's Tri-Captains
The UConn baseball team has designated players to serve as team tri-captains for the forthcoming season. This year the
program has chosen Joe Kagerer (SS, Lebanon, CT), Brian Tisbert (2B, Andover, MA) and junior Mike Scott (CF, Darien,
CT) to act as the team captains for the 2001 season.
Tough Competition
Once again, UConn began its season in the South as the Huskies started the year off at UNC-Greensboro in a three-game
series with a February 16th opening, marking the earliest in school history. This weekend UConn is set to travel to The
Citadel for a series starting on Feb. 24 with a doubleheader and wrapping up with a single game on Sunday. In all nine of
the Huskies first 12 games are against teams ranked between 16th and 27th by Baseball America in its preseason poll. From
there, UConn will visit Athens, GA, to take on the Georgia Bulldogs who are ranked 16th in the Baseball America
Preseason Top 25 poll.
Three years ago, Connecticut opened the 1998 season inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome playing in the Hormel Foods Classic. This season, the Huskies return to the Twin Cities, as they take on Minnesota in a three-game series slated for March 9-11. Following that, the team will have one final non-conference game against Sacred Heart before jumping into the competitive BIG EAST Conference schedule which is highlighted by a trip to Notre Dame on the final weekend of the league’s slate.
The Irish came into 2001 as the preseason favorite to win conference crown as Baseball America has ND 11th in the nation. Last week the Irish dropped one game to New Orleans (7-6) before taking two from host Mississippi State (7-5, 4-2) in the National Bank of Commerce Classic at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville, MS. Notre Dame is the only BIG EAST team in the top 25 in any poll, however, Virginia Tech and Seton Hall are receiving votes in the USA Today/Baseball Weekly ESPN Coaches Top 25.
UConn Head Coach Andy Baylock
Now in his 22nd season, UConn head coach Andy Baylock is just 22 wins shy of 500 career victories. To date his career
record stands at 478-425-8 (.524) as has won more games at UConn than any other coach in school history. Prior to taking
on the lead role, Baylock spent 15 years as the top assistant to then-head coaches Larry Panciera. Combining the two he has
been part of an overall record of 734-547-11 during the past 36 seasons.
Overall, he has coached in 1,302 of the 2,182 games (.596) that have ever been played involving the University of
Connecticut.
