GREENSBORO, N.C. – After winning three of its last four games, including a 9-5 victory over Wake Forest on Tuesday evening, the UNCG baseball team begins a three-game homestand against Southern Conference foe Western Carolina on Friday at 6 p.m. at the UNCG Baseball Stadium.
The Spartans (16-7, 2-1 SoCon) are tied for third in the league standings, along with The Citadel, with a 2-1 mark after winning two of three against Mercer last weekend. The top spot in the SoCon standings is shared by East Tennessee State and Samford, who are both 3-0.
Phillip Sanderson (2-1, 4.40 ERA) will make his seventh start of the season in the series opener for UNCG, opposing WCU's Jacob Corn, who is 3-0 with a 3.69 ERA. Jeremiah Triplett (2-1, 3.64 ERA) has been penciled in as the Saturday starter for the Spartans, while the Catamounts will go with Joe Vranesic (1-1, 3.98 ERA). The pitching matchup for Sunday will feature Austin Koehn (1-1, 4.26 ERA) for UNCG and Ty McCulloch (1-1, 5.54 ERA) taking the mound for Western Carolina.
UNCG, which owns a 37-33 advantage in the all-time series with the Catamounts, has a 13-1 mark at home in 2019, outscoring the opposition 95-54 in the process. Meanwhile, Western Carolina is 1-4 on the road this season, with the lone victory (16-4) coming at UNC Asheville on March 6. The Catamounts were outscored 25-16 last weekend in their opening SoCon series at East Tennessee State.
TAKING A LOOK AT THE WESTERN CAROLINA SERIES
-The Spartans and Catamounts have only one similar opponent at this stage of the season as they head into their weekend clash—Elon. Elon took two of three games from Catamounts during a weekend series in Cullowhee (March 15-17). WCU opened the series with a 5-2 victory on March 15, but the Phoenix rebounded to claim a 12-11 (10 innings) win on March 16 and closed out the three-game set with a 6-2 triumph over the Catamounts on March 17. UNCG emerged with a 4-3 come-from-behind win over the Phoenix on March 12 by virtue of scoring three runs in the eighth inning.
-UNCG and Western Carolina have met 70 times in program history with the Spartans holding the series advantage 37-33. The Spartans have taken on Western Carolina 19 times under head coach Link Jarrett, who has a 8-10 record in the regular season against the Catamounts, sweeping the series in Cullowhee last season by scores of 9-3 (April 7), 3-2 (April 8) and 5-3 (April 9). Western Carolina managed to avenge those setbacks in the opening round of the Southern Conference Tournament, emerging with a 10-2 victory on May 23.
-UNCG sophomore Greg Hardison has an 11-game hitting streak entering the weekend against the Catamounts. Hardison has faced the Catamounts on only one occasion in his career, which came during the SoCon Tournament on May 26, 2018. He finished 0-for-3 that game with a pair of strikeouts.
-The Spartans have used the same nine players in the starting lineup for the last four games with the combination of Greg Hardison, Caleb Webster, Austin Embler, Ryan Caveness, Coleman Sawyer hitting in the top five spots. Both Josh Madole and David Flores have hit seventh and ninth, respectively, but the combination of Jacquez Koonce and Hogan Windish have been interchanged between the six and eight spots. It has resulted in 43 hits in 141 at bats (.305 batting average), 22 RBI, seven doubles, two home runs and one triple for the UNCG offense, which has a .411 slugging percentage in that span.
-Western Carolina heads into the weekend on a six-game losing streak after being swept by East Tennessee State on March 22-24. The Buccaneers opened the series with a 10-9 win (March 22) and followed with victories of 5-4 (March 23) and 10-3 (March 24) to close out the weekend. Prior to that, the Catamounts dropped a 5-4 midweek contest to Gardner-Webb (March 20) at home. That was preceded by a 12-11 loss to Elon (March 16) and a 6-2 setback to the Phoenix (March 17).
The Catamounts have five hitters with better than a .300 average, including Justice Bigbie, who is hitting .425 (34-for-80) through the first 21 games of the season. Bigbie has 27 RBI, six home runs and five doubles to his credit, resulting in a .713 slugging percentage and .520 on base percentage.
Jacob Corn (3-0) leads the pitching staff in wins, making nine appearances for 13.2 innings this season. Teammate Chase Walter leads the Catamounts with 33 K's, while Taylor Purus is close behind with 30.
ON DECK FOR THE SPARTANS
The Spartans will host High Point for a non-conference game on Tuesday, April 2nd at 6 p.m. UNCG earned a 6-2 victory against the Panthers on Feb. 19th in High Point, the third game of the season for the Spartans.
