SFA Goes For Season Sweep Of Huskies
3/30/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 30, 2009
vs Houston Baptist (2-18) - March 31, 2009
JAYCEES FIELD (1,000) - NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS
at Houston Baptist (2-18) - April 1, 20009
HUSKY FIELD (1,000) - HOUSTON, TEXAS
Probable Pitching Matchups:
Tuesday: SFA - Jared West, RHP (0-2, 6.86 ERA, 21.0 IP, 15 K, 8 BB) HBU - Zac Schiefen (0-5, 9.16 ERA, 18.2 IP, 18 K, 16 BB)
Wednesday: SFA - Brett Rogers, RHP (1-2, 7.17 ERA, 21.1 IP, 9 K, 5 BB) HBU- Andrew Beasley, RHP (0-2, 10.73 ERA, 24.1 IP, 10 K, 12 BB)
THIS WEEK The `Jacks go for a season sweep of Houston Baptist, starting with a Tuesday game at Jaycees Field. SFA swept a home-and-home set two weeks ago with HBU and won both games played last season.
AGAINST THE HUSKIES SFA leads the all-time series with the Huskies 6-3 and has won the last four meetings. The `Jacks have won the last four meetings in the series.
FOLLOW THE 'JACKS RADIO: Radio can be found at www.hbuhuskies.com with Bill Cousins calling the action for the Huskies.
LIVE STATS: Livestats will be available via Gametracker for only Tuesday's game vs the Huskies at www.sfajacks.com
UPDATING THE 'JACKS SFA escaped San Marcos on Sunday with a win over the Bobcats after Texas State had taken the first two games of the series. The win halted a four-game slide for SFA after the `Jacks had won four in a row before that.
UP NEXT The `Jacks host the two-time defending Southland Conference champion UTSA Roadrunners at Jaycees Field starting Friday. UTSA dropped two of three games to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last weekend to fall into a tie for fourth in the league, but swept a three-game set from Sam Houston just one week earlier. The Roadrunners swept SFA last season in San Antonio.
SFA'S KING OF THE K: Erich Lehmann took hold of another SFA career record on Saturday when he became the all-time strikeout leader at the school. Lehmann finished with six strikeouts and no walks in a complete game shutout of Nicholls, but it was his fourth-inning strikeout of Josh Labiche that tallied his 221st career strikeout to move in front of Sean Wood. The Fort Worth native picked up his first win of the season as well, pushing his SFA-best total to 19 for his career. He also needs only 17.2 more innings to pass Wood in the all-time innings category as well. Lehmann has been outstadnding in two home starts, throwing 15 consecutive scoreless innings at Jaycees Field.
RECORD-SETTING SATURDAY: In SFA's 11-0 win over Nicholls provided several milestones for the Lumberjack program. In addition to Erich Lehmann becoming the school's all-time strikeout king, Gabriel Garcia-Serrano also jumped to the top of the record book as he set a new single-game record at the school with four stolen bases against the Colonels. On top of that the `Jacks also cut the game short by putting the mercy rule into effect for the second straight game, the first time SFA's recorded history that the team has ever run-ruled an opponent in consecutive games.
ONE GAME MAKES A DIFFERENCE: Especially when that one game is a game that an opponent scores 24 runs. That happened the second game of the year against ULM when the Warhawks dropped in 24 runs against SFA pitching. Overall the `Jacks have a 5.24 team ERA, but take that game away and as a team SFA has a 4.58 team ERA, a mark that would currently stand as the fourth best team ERA in the conference.
BULKING UP: Senior outfielder Zach Gardner has spent the majority of his career as the `Jacks primary leadoff hitter and he is doing the same this year, but take a closer look and you will see that he is also making the transformation into a run producer rather than just a run scorer. Gardner had a career best 24 RBI in 48 games as a junior in 2008, but he is quickly nearing that total in 2009 as he already has 17 in just 24 games. Gardner is currently second on the `Jacks in RBI, tied for first with eight doubles and is third on the team with a .443 slugging percentage.
NEARLY THE RECORD: SFA was swinging the sticks well on March 18 against Houston Baptist, tallying 20 hits against the Huskies which was just one hit shy of the all-time single-game record of 21 set in 2007. Oddly enough 18 of the hits were of the singles variety with ony Bo Coffman and Justin McAninch getting hits that went for extra bases.
NOT MEYERED IN A SLUMP: First baseman Sean Meyers went 4-for-5 on Sunday at Texas State, a career high in hits for the senior. Meyers currently ranks fourth in the SLC in batting average (.420), and leads SFA in slugging percentage (.659), RBI (23), home runs (3) and is tied for the team lead in doubles (8). The Conroe, Texas, native currently sits third all-time at SFA with a .367 career batting average. This year opposing managers are having a tough time trying to match up with him as well, as Meyers is actually hitting better against lefties (.429, 9/21) than against righties (.418, 28/67).
GOTTA GET `EM IN: Nobody can say that the `Jacks did not have their opportunities in their series against Central Arkansas and Louisiana Tech, but SFA never could seem to convert offensively until late in the game on Sunday. Overall, the `Jacks left 11 runners on base in 11 innings on Saturday, 14 more in 10 innings on Sunday and 11 more in 10 innings against La. Tech on Tuesday. The most SFA left on base throughout all of 2008 was 12 twice, against Sacred Heart (3/8) and Dallas Baptist (3/4). SFA also went a span of 25 consecutive innings without pushing across a run until the sixth inning on Sunday against UCA, tying the most since 2006 in that category. That year SFA went from the eighth inning on March 29 to the sixth inning on April 2 without scoring - a span of 25 innings over four games.
JAYCEES GETS A FACELIFT: Beginning in the fall of 2008, the home of SFA Baseball, Jaycees Field, underwent several renovations including elevating the press box and adding new seating. SFA sank nearly $200,000 dollars into the project that includes creating a new playing field for SFA's softball team as well. At Jaycees Field, though, a new 740-seat bleacher system in addition to chair-back seating in a covered center section in front of the press box that was elevated nearly 30 feet.
BULLPEN HOLDS UP: Richard Folmer and the SFA bullpen kept the `Jacks in a pair of games last weekend at Texas State, playing a major part in SFA picking up a comeback win on Saturday. Folmer threw 3.0 shutout innings on Sunday for the longest save of his career against the `Cats. All in all SFA's bullpen threw 6.1 shutout innings against the `Cats that day, that was just two days after the pen held the `Cats scoreless threw 5.2 innings in Friday's affair. In the three-game series the SFA bullpen threw 16.0 innings, holding down a 2.81 ERA among eight pitchers.
LUCKY (OR UNLUCKY) NUMBER SEVEN: SFA has found a key to winning over the past three seasons, and it is scoring at least seven runs. With the powerful offenses that the team had over the past two seasons, it was no surprise that SFA has scored at least seven runs in 77 games since 2006, going 58-19 (.753) in those games; however, the 'Jacks have scored less than seven 116 times since 2006, going only 18-98 (.155) in those games. The 2008 season was alsmost divided directly down that line as SFA went 22-6 in games where they scored at least seven times, and were 3-23 in games in which they scored less than seven. This year the `Jacks have scored at least seven on 10 occassions, going 8-2 in those contests and are 0-14 when scoring less than seven runs.
SENIOR CYCLE: The 2009 season will mark the fourth season with baseball back at SFA, and will mark the first four-year senior crop of players to make the full cycle through the program. Erik Gregersen, Zach Gardner, Erich Lehmann, Jared Schrom and Richard Folmer are each seniors that were part of the initial freshman recruiting class that opened up play in 2006.
-SFA-
