Baseball Welcomes SoCon Leader Elon for Military Appreciation Weekend
4/20/2011 2:39:00 PM | Baseball
STATESBORO, Ga. - The Georgia Southern Baseball team (22-15, 11-4) welcomes Southern Conference Leader Elon (24-13, 14-4) for Military Appreciation Weekend, April 22nd-24th. All military members, active, reserve or retired will be granted free admission to all three contests this weekend when they present a military I.D. The Baseball team will unveil camouflage hats and will wear red, white and blue wristbands in honor of our nation's military members.
The Phoenix leads the conference with a 14-4 record, but the Eagles sit just three games out of the loss column with an 11-4 record. Georgia Southern is coming off a series victory with Western Carolina last weekend and won the final two games in a high-scoring series. Elon took two of three from Charleston, but fell on Sunday 4-1.
Named national and Southern Conference Player of the Week, Victor Roache (Ypsilanti, Mich.), took the Division I lead for home runs after hitting five last week. His 18 on year passed Jake Lowery's (James Madison) 17 on Sunday. The sophomore outfielder leads the conference in home runs and is tied with Daniel Aldrich (Charleston) in slugging percentage with a .762 mark.
The Eagles continue to pace the conference in batting average at a .311 team clip. GSU also leads in runs scored, hits and RBIs, while Elon has gotten timely hitting and leads the conference in walks. Elon ranks ninth with a .254 batting average but have 15 triples (1st) and 21 home runs (5th) to go along with their SoCon best 187 walks and 52 hit by pitches. The Phoenix also pace the league in stolen bases and sacrifice bunts.
Neal Pritchard leads Elon at the plate with a .308 batting average in 36 games this season and is third in on-base percentage at .476. Pritchard has walked 24 times and been hit by 13 pitches to post an on-base percentage well over .100 points better than his average. Kyle Webb leads the starting rotation with a 2.96 ERA. Webb is 2-1 on the year and has logged 51.2 innings. He has struck out 40 batters to only 16 walks this season.
Georgia Southern won the 2010 series 4-0 victory in the series finale and evened the all-time record against Elon at 14-14. Andy Moye (Alpharetta, Ga.) tossed a gem, allowing just three hits in seven innings for the win. The Eagles fell in the opener 10-3, but rebounded for an 5-4 victory in game two. The top four batters in the order picked up two hits each in the second game and Roache drove in two runners with three hits from the six hole in the lineup.
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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