{"id":42769,"date":"2019-05-09T11:36:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=42769"},"modified":"2019-05-09T11:37:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T15:37:01","slug":"fgcu_baseball-prepares-for-conference-series-at-njit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/05\/fgcu_baseball-prepares-for-conference-series-at-njit\/","title":{"rendered":"FGCU_Baseball prepares for conference series at NJIT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The FGCU baseball team (30-17, 12-5 ASUN) will wrap up its conference road swing with a series at NJIT (16-25-1, 6-15 ASUN) May 10-12. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Friday at Skylands Stadium. Saturday and Sunday&#8217;s games are both slated for a noon start. All three games will be streamed on the Highlander Sports Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A LOOK AT FGCU<\/strong><br>Junior&nbsp;<strong>Mason Studstill<\/strong>&nbsp;has established himself as one of the best arms in the nation. His average of 4.40 hits allowed per nine innings is the second-lowest in the nation and his earned run average (1.59) checks in at 13th.<br><strong>Studstill (Titusville, FL\/Rockledge HS\/Eastern Florida State)<\/strong>&nbsp;leads the ASUN with 90 strikeouts so far, which stands alone as the sixth-most dealt by an Eagle in single-season history.<br>As a team, the Green and Blue sit at the top of the league standings. They pace the conference in runs (314), RBIs (279) and on-base percentage (.387).<br>Junior&nbsp;<strong>Alex Brait&nbsp;<\/strong>leads the team in the batter&#8217;s box. The catcher owns a .325 batting average and has cranked out 66 hits, the most by any player in the ASUN.<br><strong>Brait (Viera, FL\/Viera HS)<\/strong>&nbsp;has caught 11 runners stealing so far, which ties for tenth on the FGCU single-season list. He needs just four more to check into the top five. He is also a perfect 10-10 on stolen bases and is one of two players in the league to have stolen at least 10 bags without being caught.<br>With 289 career assists, junior&nbsp;<strong>Richie Garcia<\/strong>&nbsp;is currently tied for ninth in the Eagles&#8217; record book. He and senior&nbsp;<strong>Eric Gonzalez<\/strong>&nbsp;have combined for 200 assists and 35 double plays this season.<br>Junior&nbsp;<strong>Hunter McGarry<\/strong>&nbsp;has been a force in the back end of the FGCU bullpen. He has already picked up eight saves this season, which ties for the third-most in Green and Blue single-season history.<br><strong>McGarry&#8217;s (Bradenton, FL\/Bradenton Christian School\/State College of Florida)<\/strong>&nbsp;eight saves are more than Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale, Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Barnes and former Chicago Cubs pitcher Casey Coleman accumulated in their careers as Eagles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LAST TIME OUT<\/strong><br>The Eagles dropped two close games to Stetson at the Hatters&#8217; home stadium in DeLand. The series finale was cancelled due to weather.<br><strong>Garcia (Davie, FL\/West Broward HS)<\/strong>&nbsp;scored the first run of the series after being pushed across by&nbsp;<strong>Gonzalez (Miami, FL\/American HS\/ASA College)<\/strong>&nbsp;in the opening frame of Friday night&#8217;s game. The initial 1-0 lead was the Eagles&#8217; only advantage of the weekend.<br><strong>Studstill (5-1)<\/strong>&nbsp;was charged with his first loss of the season as the Eagles eventually fell to the reigning ASUN champs by a score of 2-1.<br>The Hatters posted a 5-0 edge over FGCU in game two before senior&nbsp;<strong>Jay Hayes (Altamonte Springs, FL\/Lyman HS)&nbsp;<\/strong>got the team on the board by driving in&nbsp;<strong>Garcia<\/strong>.<br>Junior&nbsp;<strong>Kohl Gilmore (Fort Pierce, FL\/John Carroll HS\/Indian River)<\/strong>&nbsp;made it a two-run ballgame with a single that sent&nbsp;<strong>Garcia&nbsp;<\/strong>and&nbsp;<strong>Gonzalez&nbsp;<\/strong>home, but it was the closest the team ever got.<br>The series loss was the first for the Eagles since dropping two-of-three to UNF back in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SCOUTING THE HIGHLANDERS<\/strong><br>Last weekend, NJIT faced off against conference newcomer North Alabama. The Highlanders and the Lions split the first two games, but North Alabama claimed the series after winning Sunday&#8217;s rubber match 8-3.<br>Sophomore Paul Franzoni finished the three-game series 5-for-12 with seven RBIs, three runs, two doubles and two home runs.<br>On Tuesday night, the Highlanders rallied to an 18-11 win over St. Peter&#8217;s. After scoring just two runs, the Highlanders posted a combined total of 16 over the last two frames of the night.<br>Freshman Brett Helmkamp finished the night 4-for-6 with three RBIs and two runs. On the season, Helmkamp leads the team with a .329 batting average, the highest of any freshman in the ASUN.<br>Sophomore Julio Marcano has cranked out a team-high eight home runs and paces the Highlanders with 81 total bases. His twin brother, David Marcano, has stolen nine bags and turned in 10 extra-base hits.<br>The Highlanders&#8217; starting rotation of junior Tyler Stafflinger, redshirt-senior Sean Lubreski and junior Jared Kasco have a combined ERA of 5.39. The trio has given up 264 hits and been charged with 128 earned runs.<br>Freshman Joe Georgini has made a team-high 18 appearances. He and Kasco have each picked up one save so far this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ASUN STANDINGS<\/strong><br><strong>1. FGCU (30-17, 12-5 ASUN)<\/strong><br>2. Liberty (33-15, 12-6 ASUN)<br>3. Lipscomb (26-21, 10-8 ASUN)<br>4. UNF (28-20, 9-8 ASUN)<br>4. Stetson (21-16, 9-8 ASUN)<br>6. Jacksonville (26-23, 9-9 ASUN)<br>7. Kennesaw State (23-26, 8-10 ASUN)<br>8. North Alabama (15-33, 7-13 ASUN)<br>9. NJIT (16-25-1, 6-15 ASUN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>THE STRENGTH OF THE CONFERENCE<\/strong><br>The ASUN currently has four teams in the top-130 RPI ranking: Liberty (53), Jacksonville (86), UNF (103) and FGCU (129).<br>As a whole, ASUN teams are 5-7 against opponents ranked in the nation&#8217;s top 25.<br>FGCU owns a win over then-No. 5 Florida, who is currently No. 32 in RPI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2019 SCHEDULE<\/strong><br>The Eagles began their 55-game campaign with a bang and opened the year playing each of their first 11 games in the friendly confines of Swanson Stadium.<br>The Green and Blue played a total of nine times against programs from Power 5 universities (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC).<br>FGCU is billed to play 36 home games and 19 contests on the road. Additional notable non-conference home games included dates with Rutgers (March 15-17), FAU (March 19), FIU (March 26) and Miami (April 10).<br>The first ASUN matchup was a series at UNF March 22-24, which the Eagles dropped 2-1.<br>FGCU will compete 16 times against programs who have played in the NCAA Championship tournament at least once over the last two years. The mark includes a Florida squad that won the national championship two years ago and advanced to the 2018 College World Series. FGCU will also grace a Stetson program (May 3-5) that hosted an NCAA Regional last year and advanced to a Super Regional.<br>The 2019 ASUN Conference Championship will be held May 22-25 in DeLand, Florida, and will be hosted by Stetson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WE&#8217;VE GOT YOUR SEAT<\/strong><br><em>Experience FGCU Baseball and Softball this season. The following ticket opportunities are on sale now:<\/em><br><strong>Group Sales<\/strong><br><em>Bring your group of 15 or more to an FGCU Baseball or Softball game. All group tickets include your choice of concessions or an FGCU hat ($15 value), in-game group recognition and more. For more information on group outings, click&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/admin.fgcuathletics.com\/services\/go.ashx\/7ba609c0-485b-484f-8bac-dc43b2883788?elinkdata=925508\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HERE<\/a>&nbsp;or call&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/admin.fgcuathletics.com\/services\/go.ashx\/45225ba7-ce5a-4984-acfe-c3f77256e500?elinkdata=925508\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">239-590-7145<\/a>.<\/em><br><strong>Single Game Tickets<\/strong><br><em>Single game tickets are available for all remaining home games. Adult tickets are $7 each. Discounted tickets are available for current or former Military and Youth ages 3-15 for just $5 each. Baseball and Softball Frequent Flyer Cards allow multiple entries for more than 50 percent off the adult rate. Choose 34 baseball entries for $105 or 17 softball entries for $55. Purchase online&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/admin.fgcuathletics.com\/services\/go.ashx\/ce211dee-9af4-4bc6-b4c6-e5ffd94d4fe4?elinkdata=925508\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HERE<\/a>&nbsp;or call&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/admin.fgcuathletics.com\/services\/go.ashx\/ab447bc8-44eb-415b-a643-1577c959eddf?elinkdata=925508\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">239-590-7145<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"670\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/unnamed-77.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-42770\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/unnamed-77.jpg 670w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/unnamed-77-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FGCU baseball team (30-17, 12-5 ASUN) will wrap up its conference road swing with a series at NJIT (16-25-1, 6-15 ASUN) May 10-12. First pitch is scheduled for 3&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}