Baseball March 16, 2015 USF

Baseball Welcomes Stetson, FIU to Tampa for Midweek Matchups

TAMPA, Fla. (March 16, 2015)—Before heading to Illinois for the final non-conference series of the season, the USF baseball team will take on Stetson and FIU in a pair of midweek games.

The Bulls are coming off their seventh straight victory and fourth shutout of the season. The Bulls swept FAMU to earn their second straight sweep of the season. The pitching staff was in top form as they struck out 38 batters on the weekend. Casey Mulholland set a career high with 12 strikeouts while Joe Cavallaro set a career high with seven. On Saturday night, Mulholland, Michael Farley and Tommy Peterson combined to throw 17 strikeouts, just one shy of the program high.

Through the first five weeks of the season, USF is 13-6-1 and has won seven straight. Senior shortstop Kyle Teaf leads the team, batting .299 with 12 runs on 20 hits and 12 RBI. Luke Borders leads the team with 20 RBI and seven doubles, while Levi Borders leads with four home runs.

SCOUTING THE HATTERS

Stetson enters Tuesday's game with a 12-9 record and a four-game win streak after sweeping Harvard this past weekend. The Hatters boast seven players batting over .300 and are led by Garrett Russini, batting .387 with 17 runs on 29 hits. Patrick Mazeika leads the team with five home runs on the season.

ALL-TIME SERIES
Stetson leads the all-time series with an 84-79 record. Last season, the Hatters took both games in DeLand during a midweek series. Stetson took a 6-3 win in the first game before earning a 2-1 win in the second game.

SCOUTING THE PANTHERS
FIU comes to Tampa with a 9-11 record and a 1-3 record on the road. The Panthers are led by Jack Schaaf, batting .301 with 15 runs on 22 hits and one home run. Pitching wise, FIU is led by Andres Nunez who boasts a 1.78 ERA in six appearance. Nunez has given up just seven runs (five earned) on 22 hits and has struck out 24.

ALL-TIME SERIES
FIU leads the series by a narrow margin, 18-14. The last meeting between the two teams resulted in the Panthers taking two of three games. USF dropped the first home game 8-2, before dropping the second home matchup, 9-0. In the final game in Miami, the Bulls pulled out a 6-4 win.

QUICK HITTERS

· Joe Cavallaro threw 7.0 innings of two-hit ball while striking out a career high 12 batters in a 5-0 shutout over FAMU Sunday afternoon.

· Casey Mulholland threw a career high 12 K's in 6.2 innings of work on Saturday night. Combined with Michael Farley and Tommy Peterson, the trio accounted for 17 strikeouts, one shy of the program high of 18.

· Mulholland was named to the American Athletic Conference Honor Roll for his outing on Satuday.

· Levi Borders had his first multi-home run game of the season, launching two three-run homers against FAMU Friday night.

· In the last five games, the Borders brothers lead the team as Luke is batting .500 and Levi is batting .471. Both have eight hits while Luke has seven runs to Levi's four. Levi has eight RBI in the span and Luke has five.

UP NEXT
The Bulls head to Illinois to take on the Fighting Illini in a three-game series, March 20-22. It's the final non-conference series for USF before opening conference play against Cincinnati next weekend.

FOLLOW ALONG
Fans can follow the team on Twitter (@USFBaseball) and Instagram (@USFBaseball), as well as SnapChat (USouthFlorida). Live stats and video/audio can be found at GoUSFBulls.com.

- #GoBulls -

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