Bulls Get Back to League Action, Host Tulane for Three
Matchup: USF (18-8, 2-1 The American) vs. Tulane (11-15, 2-1 The American)
Dates: Thursday, March 29 – Saturday, March 31
Times: 7 p.m. | 6:30 p.m. | 1 p.m.
Location: Tampa, Fla., | USF Baseball Stadium (3,211)
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GAME NOTES
TAMPA, MARCH 28, 2018 – The University of South Florida baseball team is seeking its sixth-straight series win when it returns to league play for a three-game series against Tulane beginning Thursday at 7 p.m.
The Bulls (18-8) dropped a Tuesday matchup against a Stetson team that was ranked in multiple polls, 5-3. Senior
Duke Stunkel Jr. (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) went 3-for-4 with a double and a run scored.
Coco Montes (Miami) was on base three times and scored two runs. Junior
Alec Wisely (Jacksonville) pitched three scoreless inning out of the bullpen.
Junior
JD Dutka (Suwanee, Ga.) hit .500 last week with four doubles, a triple and six runs scored. He was named to the American Athletic Conference Weekly Honor Roll on Monday.
Junior catcher
Tyler Dietrich (Naples, Fla.) hit .500 against UConn to open conference play and
David Villar (Pembroke Pines, Fla.) hit .385 with two doubles and three runs over the weekend.
USF's bullpen was magical against the Huskies, combining for 11.0 innings, allowing just eight hits and one unearned run with nine strikeouts.
Lefty All-American
Shane McClanahan (Cape Coral, Fla.) will start Thursday and look to shake off his most recent outing against UConn, in which he allowed six runs in the second inning. Prior to that, McClanahan had set a program record for 31.2 consecutive innings having not allowed an earned run. He sits second nationally with 61 strikeouts and is fifth with 15.84 K's per nine innings.
Righty
Peter Strzelecki (Lake Worth, Fla.) will start Friday and sophomore right hander
Collin Sullivan (Randolph, Mass.) will start Saturday.
Head coach
Billy Mohl will face his alma mater for the first time as lead skipper on Thursday. Mohl was a standout four-year member of the Green Wave baseball team, setting the school single-season and career record for fewest walks-per-nine-inning average. The righty went 9-0 as a senior, becoming just the second regular starter in Tulane history to go undefeated.
He was a part of Tulane's 2005 College World Series team that earned the No. 1 national seed in the tournament.
SERIES HISTORY
Tulane leads the all-time series with the Bulls 32-22. USF defeated Tulane in the conference tournament last season, 7-6, and took the final game of a three-game series in New Orleans. Prior to that, Tulane had won seven-straight in the series.
SCOUTING REPORT
The Green Wave (11-15) also enter the second weekend of league play having lost a midweek game after taking 2-of-3 from Cincinnati at home. Tulane is 10-7 at home but just 1-8 on the road, though it has played road series at Ole Miss, Long Beach State and contest at LSU.
Tulane is led offensively by infielder Jonathan Artigues, batting .330 with 21 runs and six doubles. Kody Hoese is hitting .315 and preseason all-conference selection Grant Witherspoon is batting .302 with a team-high eight doubles, four homers and 20 RBI.
The Green Wave will start three right handers this weekend. Kaleb Roper (2-3, 4.40 ERA, 28 K) will go Thursday, Ben White (0-1, 4.65 ERA, 19 K) will start Friday and Keagan Gillies (2-3, 2.56 ERA, 31 K) will get the nod Sunday.
NOTA-BULLS
- Villar still leads the Bulls and sits third in the conference with a .379 average. His 13 doubles on the year are fourth in the nation.
- USF leads the country with 76 doubles and leads the nation with 14 triples on the year.
- The Bulls are tops in the conference with a .466 slugging percentage, a .295 batting average and in scoring (6.8 runs per game).
- Montes is hitting .410 over the last 10 games and Stunkel Jr. is hitting .383 with six doubles over that span.
- Junior Garrett Zech (Naples, Fla.) hit his sixth triple over the weekend, ranking him second in the country.
About USF Baseball
The University of South Florida baseball team is one of the fastest rising programs in the country. The Bulls reached the NCAA Regionals in 2015 for the first time in 13 years and followed that success with a 42-19 record and second NCAA regional trip in three years in 2017. The Bulls earned just their second and third wins over top-five ranked teams with victories against then-No. 3 Florida State and at then-No. 5 Florida during the 2017 season. During the 2017 season, USF reached the 40-win mark for the first time since 1996 and entered the top-25 in the major collegiate baseball polls for the first time since 2013. The USF Baseball program has won five conference titles and the Bulls have made 12 NCAA appearances.
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