USF Begins Series at No. 7 ECU Friday
Matchup: USF (21-12, 5-4 The American) at No. 7 ECU (25-8, 4-2 The American)
Dates: Friday, April 13 – Sunday, April 15
Times: 6:30 p.m. | 4 p.m. | noon
Location: Greenville, N.C. | Clark-LeClair Stadium (5,000)
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TAMPA, April 12, 2018 – The University of South Florida baseball team is on the road for a three-game series at No. 7 East Carolina, beginning Friday at 6:30 p.m. in Greenville, N.C.
The Bulls (21-12, 5-4 The American) fell at Stetson Wednesday afternoon, 5-2. Junior
David Villar (Pembroke Pines, Fla.) hit .500 over the weekend in Houston with two runs scored, two homers and six RBI. He had two home runs in a game for the first time in his career to help lead the Bulls in Friday's win.
Villar went 2-for-4 at Stetson with two doubles and now has 16 on the season to rank fourth nationally. Classmate
Chris Chatfield (Riverview, Fla.) also went 2-for-4 in the game.
The Bulls will again go with the same weekend rotation. Lefty All-American
Shane McClanahan (Cape Coral, Fla.) will start Friday night. The redshirt sophomore was one of only 40 players in the country named to the USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award Midseason Watch List earlier in the week. He sits second in the country with 81 strikeouts and leads the nation with 15.40 K's per nine innings.
Redshirt senior righty
Peter Strzelecki (Lake Worth, Fla.) will get the start Saturday. He had the longest outing of any Bull at Houston last weekend. Strzelecki tossed 8.1 innings and allowed just one run. Sophomore
Collin Sullivan (Randolph, Mass.) will start Sunday.
SERIES HISTORY
The Pirates hold a 16-11 edge in the all-time series, but USF has dominated recently, winning nine of the last 12 meetings. USF swept ECU at home last year before falling to the Pirates in the second game of The American Conference Championships. The Bulls have defeated ECU in Greenville three times in nine tries.
SCOUTING REPORT
The Pirates have been climbing the rankings since taking 2-of-3 from a top-10 UNC squad Feb. 23-25. Sitting at 25-7, ECU has a win over the College of Charleston, a sweep
ECU's starting pitching has been stout this season. A trio of right handers will tote the rubber this weekend. Chris Holba is 7-0 on the year with a 1.33 ERA, ranking him 21
st in the country. Tyler Smith is 5-0 and will start Saturday with his 1.11 ERA, the eighth-best mark in the nation. Trey Benton will start Sunday and leads the team with 46 strikeouts.
The offense has been led by freshman outfielder Bryant Packard, who sits second in the league with a .400 average. He leads ECU with 26 RBI, seven doubles and seven homers. Brady Lloyd is hitting .396 with 27 runs scored, Jake Washer is hitting .330 with six doubles, four home runs and 24 RBI and Connor Litton is batting .322 with seven home runs as well.
NOTA-BULLS
- USF is third in the country with 88 doubles and 14 triples.
- The Bulls are tops in the conference with a .462 slugging percentage and 335 hits.
- Junior Joe Genord (Lake Worth, Fla.) leads The American with eight home runs.
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.
– #GoBulls –
