STATESBORO, Ga. - The Georgia Southern Baseball team (20-14, 9-3) returns to Southern Conference play this weekend at Western Carolina (13-17-1, 4-11). The two teams open the series Friday at 3 p.m. and continue Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Hennon Stadium. Friday's game time was moved up to 3 p.m. from the orginal 6 p.m. due to weather concerns.
Victor Roache (Ypsilanti, Mich.) and Garren Palmer (Dalton, Ga.) look to carry their hot hitting into conference play. Roache sent his 15th home run of the season into the night in the eighth inning against UNF.
Georgia Southern continues to lead the conference in batting average and hits. The Eagles are second in the SoCon with a .455 slugging percentage and a .391 on-base percentage. Eric Phillips (Carrollton, Ga.) continues to chase the league's batting title with a .421 average. The Eagle pitching staff is second in the conference with a 4.12 ERA and have issued the second fewest free passes this season. Matt Murray (Spring City, Pa.) after a bump in his ERA to 0.80 lowered it on Wednesday to 0.77 with two scoreless innings. He leads the SoCon in that category as well as opposing batting average (.165).
Roache is currently in second place in the NCAA trailing only Jake Lowery of James Madison, who has 17 on the year. Roache finished the day with two hits in two at-bats and two walks. Palmer has reached base in his last six games and is hitting a team-best .429 in the last five games. Palmer hit his first career home run a week ago against Mercer.
The Eagles are coming off a midweek split against a pair of Jacksonville-area schools. GSU defeated Jacksonville 20-7 on Tuesday, but could not pull off the sweep, falling 7-3 to North Florida on Wednesday.
The Eagles tied for their season high of 20 runs against Jacksonville and knocked out 17 hits while taking advantage of four Dolphin errors. Roache and Palmer both drove in four runs and combined for five hits and five runs scored. Phillips and Palmer both picked up three hits, while Tom Richardson (Lilburn, Ga.) went a perfect 4-4 at the plate. Two other Eagles picked up multi-hit games, while Steve Cochrane (Mooresville, N.C.) scored three runs on three walks.
The Ospreys opened Wednesday's game with runs in four of the first five innings and scored six of their seven runs in the first half of the game. The Eagles attempted to mount a comeback, scoring three runs in the final three frames. Stryker Brown (Dalton, Ga.) picked up hits in his final three at-bats and drove in two runs on his first career home run. Brown also singled in the fifth inning and again in the ninth, putting two runners on base with one out.
Western Carolina has dropped six out of its last eight games, but rebounded in its last SoCon series, taking two of three from Samford. The Catamounts have had a rough start in conference play, having won only one other series against Davidson. WCU battled to pick up wins in the first two games of the series with the Bulldogs, winning 4-3 in 12 innings in game one and 3-2 in game two.
The series with Western Carolina is a tight one, Georgia Southern leads 50-43, but the Catamounts took the series last year with a 14-11 win in the finale. The Eagles won the opener 11-4, but fell 11-3 in game two.
Georgia Southern Baseball games can be heard live on Eagle 102.9 FM and are also available online at GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com/Eaglevision with broadcasts beginning 30 minutes prior to first pitch. Ryan Chambers of the Georgia Southern Radio Network will call all the action.
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