Baseball Travels to Davidson for Early Series
4/5/2012 3:21:00 PM | Baseball
STATESBORO, Ga. - Set to play four games in four days, the Georgia Southern Baseball team travels to Davidson for a three-game series that starts today. The Eagles get underway in Southern Conference play at 6 p.m. and will continue the series at 6 p.m. on Friday and 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Returning to .500 after an 8-6 win over Bethune-Cookman last night, Georgia Southern (15-15, 5-7) will look to inch even closer to that mark in conference play against the Davidson Wildcats (11-15, 3-9). Chase Griffin (Leesburg, Ga.), who leads the team in SoCon play with 12 hits in 33 at-bats, put the Eagles on top in the eighth inning last night with his team-best seventh home run.
Eric Phillips (Carrollton, Ga.) continues to inch even closer to 300 hits and stands just six hits short of being the fifth ever Eagle and 12th player in the Southern Conference's history to reach that mark. Phillips tallied two hits last nights to extend his on-base streak to 31 games. The senior co-captain has reached base in every game dating back to game two of the Columbia Regional against N.C. State.
Chris Beck (Jefferson, Ga.) will move up one day from his normal Friday spot to start the series opener against Davidson on Thursday. After a combined 18 strikeouts over two appearances last week, the junior co-captain moved into fifth place in the nation for strikeouts. Beck, who has tossed a quality start in all but one of his seven starts this season, carries a 3-2 record with a 3.59 ERA in 47.2 innings to the mound this weekend.
Georgia Southern will also send Justin Hess (Panama City, Fla.) (1-1, 6.91) and Will Middour (Atlanta, Ga.) (1-2, 3.91) to the mound this weekend to face a Davidson rotation of Henry Sisson (1-1, 5.60), Ryan Overcash (2-4, 5.88) and a starter to be named later. Sisson, who is making just his fourth start of the season, went five innings in his last start against Western Carolina and received a no decision after allowing four runs on six hits in a 12-6 loss. The Wildcats' pitching staff as a whole holds a 5.27 ERA with a 1.6 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Davidson is coming off a mid-week victory of USC Upstate and beat Duke 2-1 prior to dropping the conference series in Cullowhee, N.C., to Western Carolina last weekend. The Wildcats walked off with the Elon series and are still the only SoCon team to take two-of-three from the Phoenix this season.
Davidson's offense is hitting .243 as a squad but has one of the league's best on-base percentages. The Wildcats have walked 125 times in 26 games this season and hold a .354 on-base percentage as a team. Andrew Barna leads the team in that category with a .398 on-base mark and is hitting a team-best .306 with four doubles and 19 RBIs.
The games can be heard on the Boomer 103.7 FM and inside the stadium on 88.1 FM. Audio for all games is also available on the web and subscription video is available for all home games at GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com/Eaglevision.
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