GREENSBORO, N.C. – The UNCG baseball team wraps up its final road series of the season when the Spartans head to Lexington, Va., for a three-game set against Southern Conference foe VMI. The series begins on Friday, May 10th, when the two teams take to the field at 6 p.m. at Gray-Minor Stadium.
The Spartans (29-14, 11-7 SoCon) take a seven-game winning streak into the weekend and are in fourth place in the league standings behind Samford, Wofford and Mercer. The Bears, who are currently in third, are taking on Belmont in a non-conference series this weekend.
VMI (14-35, 8-13 SoCon), who enters the weekend eighth in the conference standings, dropped two of three meetings to Furman between May 3-5. The Keydets are 6-17 at home, last posting a victory at Gray-Minor Stadium on Tuesday, April 16th against Richmond (11-10, 11 innings).
Freshman Austin Koehn (3-1, 3.21 ERA) earned the starting nod from head coach Link Jarrett in Friday's series opener. Koehn picked up his third win of the season last weekend against ETSU (May 4), after he tossed six innings, allowed two runs and five hits, while notching five strikeouts. It marked his sixth consecutive game with at least five strikeouts.
Phillip Sanderson (4-3, 6.28 ERA) will toe the rubber for the Spartans on Saturday, May 11th. Sanderson is making his 12th start of the season and is in search of his first win since April 13th, when he posted a win over George Mason.
Jake Mayhew (2-0, 5.11 ERA) takes to the hill for UNCG on Sunday in what will be his third start of the season. His previous two starts came against The Citadel (April 28) and ETSU (May 5), resulting in a win and a no decision, respectively.
UNCG-VMI Series Quick Notes
-UNCG and VMI have gone head-to-head on 38 occasions with the Spartans holding a 25-13 advantage in the all-time series.
-UNCG, which has enjoyed five double-digit hit games during its current seven-game winning streak, has eight players with at least 10 multi-hit performances on the season. Greg Hardison became the most recent Spartan slugger to to join the exclusive group, finishing with multiple hits in two games against ETSU last weekend.
-UNCG freshman hurler Austin Koehn has record at least five strikeouts in each of his last six starts. Koehn has faced Western Carolina (March 31, five strikeouts), Furman (April 7, six), George Mason (April 14, six), Samford (April 20, six), The Citadel (April 27, six) and ETSU (May 4, six) in succession.
-The Spartan pair of Chad Sykes and Corey Jackson have proved to be one of the best bullpen duos in the Southern Conference during the 2019 season. Collectively, they have six wins and six saves in 18 appearances for UNCG in league action, ranking among the top five of seven major statistical categories.
Along with ranking atop the UNCG staff in multiple categories, Sykes is among the nation's statistical leaders in five major categories including ERA, where he is first with a 0.58, 24th in hits allowed per nine innings (5.83), 30th in saves (9), 54th in WHIP (1.01) and 68th in strikeouts per nine innings (11.07). Jackson also sits among the top 35 NCAA Division I hurlers, ranking 35th in both victories (seven) and appearances (25).
-UNCG teammates Jacquez Koonce and Zack Budzik share the team's longest current hitting streak of seven games each. Koonce began his longest hitting streak of the season by going 2-for-4 with a triple and a run scored against Elon (April 23). Budzik, whose streak also began at Elon (April 23), has put together his second hitting streak of at least five games this season since the clash with the Phoenix.
-The Spartans head into the weekend with a 29-15 overall mark, in search of their 16th season with at least 30 wins. A victory would mark the first time since 2001-05 that UNCG won at least 30 games in three straight seasons, when the Spartans had five consecutive 30-win campaigns.
UNCG also eclipsed 30 wins in 1994 (39), 1995 (35), 1997 (45), 1998 (40), 2000 (34), 2001 (31), 2002 (33), 2003 (39), 2004 (33), 2005 (31), 2007 (30), 2008 (33), 2016 (38), 2017 (36) and 2018 (39).
ON DECK FOR THE SPARTANS
The Spartans complete the 2019 regular season at UNCG Baseball Stadium next week when they host Winthrop (May 14th) and a three-game series against Wofford (May 16-18).
