Charlotte Hosts LA Tech in Final Weekend of Regular Season

[ad_1]


Story Links CHARLOTTE, NC – The Charlotte 49ers baseball team (34-18, 16-11 C-USA) finishes out the regular season with a series this weekend against Louisiana Tech (36-17, 18-9 C-USA) at Hayes Stadium. The series will begin on Thursday (May 19) at 6 pm, followed by another 6 pm game on Friday and a 1 pm contest on Saturday. Saturday is slated for Senior Day, where the Niners will honor seven seniors: Jackson Boss, Matt Brooks, Colby Bruce, Will Lancaster, Josh Madole, Quinton Martinez, and Michael Oh. SCOUTING THE GAMECOCKS Louisiana Tech is 36-17 this season with an 18-9 mark in Conference USA play. The Bulldogs most recently swept WKU last weekend after falling in a series at Florida Atlantic where LA Tech only won one of the three games. Louisiana Tech enters the weekend in second place in the C-USA standings, two games behind league-leading Southern Miss. LA Tech dropped its series with Southern Miss earlier this season, likely meaning it can finish no higher than second place in the standings when the dust settles. The Bulldogs are one of the best teams in the country at limiting walks, entering Thursday allowing just 3.03 walks per nine innings to sit ninth in the country. They are also quite adept at striking out opponents as well, with a 3.22 strikeout-to-walk ratio that puts them 10th in the country. MIDWEEK RECAP Charlotte won its final midweek game of the season on Tuesday with an 8-3 victory on the road at South Carolina. The Niners only scored in one inning in the contest but it was more than enough with eight runs, including a two-run homer from Kaden Hopson and a grand slam from Will Butcher. Tony Rossi improved to 5-0 on the year by picking up the win after throwing five innings of shutout relief with only two hits allowed and six strikeouts. HAVING A GRAND OLE TIME Butcher’s grand slam on Tuesday was his fourth of the season and the team’s ninth. Cam Fisher is the only other Niner with multiple grand slams after hitting a pair in the same game against Marshall, and David McCabe, Jake Cunningham, and Jack Dragum each have one slam on the season. TUESDAY SUCCESS The Niners finished the season with a 9-1 record on Tuesdays in the regular season, with the only loss coming two weeks ago in extra innings at North Carolina. As a whole in midweek games, CLT finished the year with a 10-3 record. LAST WEEKEND SERIES Charlotte won its fourth weekend series in a row this past week after taking two of three at Florida Atlantic. The Niners took the first game of the series 10-3 before falling 10-9 in a marathon game of 15 innings spread over two days. The rubber series lasted half as long as CLT picked up its second win of the weekend with a 14-4 victory in seven innings. A MARATHON DAY AT THE PARK Saturday’s contest was suspended in the second inning and was slated to be resumed at 9:30 am on Sunday. More storms in the area forced the start time back to 11 am, and 14 innings of baseball followed before FAU won in the 15th inning. Another game was on deck after that finished but it only lasted seven innings after the Niners were up by 10, invoking the run rule for Conference USA, capping off a 13-hour day at the stadium for the Green and White. WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE The middle game of the series lasted five hours and 55 minutes and was the second five-hour game Charlotte has played this season. It’s the longest game in program history in terms of time elapsed – the second time this season Charlotte has played its longest game of the year after playing at 5:41 contest against App State earlier in the season. The 15 innings played ties the program record for most innings in a single game with a 2016 game at FAU. AB POSITIVE Charlotte was credited with 60 at bats in the middle game of the series, setting the program record for most at bats in one game. Austin Knight had eight of them, becoming just the fourth Niner and first since 2006 to have eight at bats in one game. WALKING ON SUNSHINE The 49ers drew eight walks against South Carolina on Tuesday to bring the season total up to 344 – a new program record. The previous benchmark of 323 was set in 1998 and a walk drawn by McCabe in the middle of the second game at FAU set the new record. With 11 walks in that middle game, Charlotte has walked at least 10 times in a game 13 times – something the Niners didn’t do a single time in 2021. The 344 walks on the year lead the country and are 10 clear of the second -place team. LOVING THE LONG BALL CLT hit a total of nine home runs over the weekend and hit a pair on Tuesday to bring the season total up to 89 on the year, 23 more than the Niners had in all 61 games a season ago. Charlotte currently averages 1.71 bombs per game, putting them on pace to hit 94 by the time the conference tournament rolls around – which would be the third-most in team history and most since hitting 95 in 1998. The Niners are currently second in the conference in both total home runs and home runs per game and are 15th and 18th in the nation, respectively. CUNNINGHAM’S QUEST FOR THE CYCLE Jake Cunningham nearly had the Niners’ first cycle since 2009 on Sunday, missing it by only a single. He hit two home runs, knocked a double, and legged out a stand-up triple, with a walk, as part of a four-RBI game. He also hit a solo home run earlier in the day as part of the resumption of the middle game of the series to give him a total of three on the weekend. HITTER OF THE WEEK Cunningham’s performance over the whole series at FAU was rewarded by the league office as he was named the C-USA Hitter of the Week on Monday afternoon. He and McCabe have both taken home Hitter of the Week honors while Hale Sims, Matt Brooks, and Cameron Hansen have earned Pitcher of the Week awards. The five weekly awards Charlotte has garnered this year are the most the team has ever received from C-USA in one season. FRESH FISH GUARANTEED Fisher has 17 home runs on the season, the second-most among players with freshman eligibility in the country and 28th among all players. Only nine freshmen are in the top 114 of all home run hitters this season and among those, only NC State’s Tommy White has more than the Niners’ right fielder. STRIKEOUTS ON STRIKEOUTS The Niners’ pitching staff tossed 15 strikeouts in the middle game against FAU to hit double digits for the 24th time this season. Charlotte averages 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings to be one of six C-USA programs averaging over a strikeout per frame in a regulation game. CLT tallied a season-high 16 strikeouts against Winthrop on April 6 for the most in a single game since striking out 17 at FIU last season. On the year, the Green and White have 483 strikeouts for the third-most in a single season in program history. WALKS GALORENate Furman is currently second in Conference USA in bases on balls with 44 and bases on balls per game with 0.85, putting him 22nd and 42nd in the nation, respectively. Fisher is third in the league with 41 free passes to first, followed by Hopson in fourth (39) to give CLT three players in the top five. BECAUSE HE GETS ON BASE Furman’s impressive on-base streak to start the season came to a close on April 6 after he failed to reach first for the first time in 28 games to start the season. He’s reached in all but two games out of the 52 this season and has an on-base percentage of .496 to lead the conference and sit 25th in the country. As a team, Charlotte has a .416 OBP to lead C-USA and sit 13th in the nation. TAKING OUR TIME… The Niners are quite methodical during the course of the game, averaging a game time of 3:30 per nine innings. Eight games have reached the four-hour mark, including a 5:41 game against App State and the 5:55 marathon at FAU that holds the record as the longest game in program history in terms of time elapsed from first pitch to final out. … BUT SPEEDING IT UP That trend has changed a bit over the past six weeks as the team has introduced an eight-minute ‘attack clock’. Charlotte has a timer in the dugout that begins counting down from eight minutes when the pitcher begins his warmup, with the goal being to get out of the inning and off the field before the clock runs out. Since introducing the clock before the Southern Miss series, the Green and White’s game time per nine innings is down to 3:18 and has taken 11 minutes off the pre-attack clock average of 3:41. LIMITING THE DAMAGE CLT has held opponents to five or fewer runs 33 times this season and is 29-4 in those games, doing so in two of the games this weekend and on Tuesday. The Niners are 10-1 when conceding two or fewer runs and are 19-3 when the other team scores between three and five times. WORKING WITH A LEAD Charlotte has only scored first 23 times in the 51 games this season but is 20-3 when getting on the board before its opponent. Additionally, the Green and White are also 17-3 when they score their first run of the game in the opening frame and have outscored their opponents 52-29 in the first inning, 123-61 over the first two stanzas, and 153-74 in the opening three innings. FOLLOW ALONG All three games this weekend will be streamed on ESPN +. All links for each contest can be found online at Charlotte49ers.com.

[ad_2]