STATESBORO, Ga. – The Georgia Southern baseball team hosts the South Alabama Jaguars for the final home Sun Belt Conference series of the year.
The Eagles (27-18) will honor their six seniors on Sunday as a part of Senior Day.
Also during the weekend series the team will honor military service men and women as a part of Military Appreciation Weekend and host a Diamond Dig on Sunday.
Active duty and retired military members will receive a free general admission ticket with ID and Family members can purchase discounted general admission tickets for $5 each.
International Diamond Center will give away a .70 carat round brilliant diamond to a fan who finds it buried in the infield following the series finale on Sunday. Fans can register to dig for the diamond on the concourse before the game.
All three games of the series will air on ESPN3. The series opens Friday with a 6 p.m. first pitch. Game two is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday and the series wraps up Sunday at 1 p.m.
Georgia Southern stands in second place in the Sun Belt Conference with a 16-8 (.667) mark and is tied in the standings with their weekend opponent the Jaguars (29-17), who are 14-7 (.667) in league play. The Eagles will also play the first place team, Georgia State, to close the regular season.
GS is hitting .270 as a squad.
Kody Adams leads the team with a .321 batting average and is one of three Eagles hitting over .300 on the year.
Aaron Mizell is hitting .318/.397/.625 with 12 doubles and 12 home runs and leads the team with 37 RBI.
The pitching staff lowered the team ERA to 3.86 after a 5-3 mid-week victory at Jacksonville.
Evan Challenger leads the team with a SBC best 1.06 ERA and is 5-0 with 50 strikeouts compared to 14 walks over 59.1 innings.
Jason Richman picked up his team-leading sixth win on Tuesday and holds a 2.60 ERA in 55.1 innings.
Head Coach
Rodney Hennon will stick with the same weekend rotation that he has used for most of the SBC slate.
Challenger will get the start on Friday night and will be followed by Senior righthander
Tripp Sheppard (4-2, 2.79 ERA) on Saturday. Sheppard was solid last time out, allowing one run over 5.1 innings in a no decision. Freshman
Connor Simmons (2-4, 3.37 ERA) will get the call on Sunday.
South Alabama comes into the weekend hitting .280 as a team. Cole Billingsley leads the team with a .330 batting average. Billingsley is tied for the team lead with two home runs and is slugging .434.
The pitching staff leads the conference with a 3.29 ERA. Friday night starter Kevin Hill is 7-0 with a 2.22 ERA in eight starts on the mound. Ben Taylor is 5-1 with a 0.70 ERA and five saves out of the bullpen. Hill is the SBC Pitcher of the Week after tossing a one-hit complete game shutout of Georgia State last week.
Hill is joined in the rotation by righthander Austin Bembnowski (2-3, 2.90 ERA) and lefthander Jared Gates (4-2, 4.05 ERA). Bembnowski threw eight shutout innings and struck out six batters in a no decision last time out.
Links to live stats, video and audio are available at gseagles.com.
Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. For tickets to Georgia Southern athletics events, call 1-800-GSU-WINS or visit GSEagles.com.
