Concord Stats - Shepherd Stats - Fairmont State Stats - Live Stats
ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University baseball team continues its road swing when it visits Shepherd 1:00 p.m. Friday before traveling to Fairmont State 1:00 p.m. Saturday for a pair of Mountain East Conference doubleheaders.
LIVE COVERAGE
Stats: Both the Fairmont State and Shepherd Sports Information Departments will provide live statistics for the road contests involving the Mountain Lions.
RECORDS
Concord is 12-5 overall and sports an MEC record of 5-3.
Shepherd leads the MEC North Division with a mark of 6-2 and is 15-9 overall.
Fairmont State is 13-9 this season and has split the first eight conference games.
CLUBHOUSE LEADER
CU begins the weekend ranked first in the MEC in batting average (.321) earned run average (3.63) while ranking second in fielding percentage (.960). All four of Concord's weekend starting pitchers, junior
Trent Abernathy, senior
Troy Beckner, senior Wil Guay and sophomore
Logan Morrison all have ERAs under four. Beckner, who became the third player in program history to record 200 strikeouts last week, leads the group with an ERA of 2.45. Offensively, sophomore infielder
Anthony Stehlin is CU's leader in batting average at .404, but is hitting .481 in eight conference games. Junior outfielder
Adam Linkous (.458), junior catcher
Jakob Divers (.440) and senior infielder
Brett Simmons (.429) are all batting over .400 in MEC games. The only teams in the MEC ranked top five in pitching, batting and fielding is Shepherd and UVa.-Wise.
MIDWEEK MAN
Junior pitcher
Bryson Booher picked up his first career win in a 7-4 Concord win at Winston-Salem State Tuesday by tossing a career-high six innings against the regionally-ranked Rams. The Fort Chiswell, Virginia native also started his second straight midweek game, and with Tuesday's win helped Concord improve to 7-2 in non-conference games. Also in Tuesday's game, Simmons homered for the second time in three games while senior outfielder
Evan Webb launched his first home run of the season.
CLOSING THE DOOR
Linkous tossed a scoreless ninth inning at Winston-Salem State to earn his third save of the season. The Blacksburg, Virginia native has allowed just two hits in 7.2 innings of relief pitching this season, and opponents are only hitting .080 off Linkous in 2019. Linkous is tied with Fairmont State's Houston Morris and UVa.-Wise's Nate Thompson for the MEC lead in saves this season.
GOOD ON GOOD
The Mountain Lions' pitching staff will face one of the league's best offenses in Shepherd when the teams square off Friday. SU is right behind Concord is batting average this season at .319 while having a commanding lead in home runs with 28—the next closest team has 15. Last season, the Rams took all three meetings from Concord—including eliminating CU from the MEC Tournament—as it scored at least 13 runs in all three contests.
POWER SURGE
Concord has won five of the last seven meetings against Fairmont State dating back to the 2016 season. CU is averaging 10.8 runs per game including scoring 15 or more three times. In seven career games versus the Fighting Falcons, senior catcher
Jordan Clark is hitting 10-for-31 with three home runs, three doubles and five RBI. Clark starts the weekend tied for fourth in career RBI at Concord with 165 and needs two more to move into second place all-time. Webb has also posted good career numbers against Fairmont State that includes his first career home run in a 9-0 CU win at Fairmont State two years ago.
SHEPHERD AT A GLANCE
Since starting the year 1-7, the Rams have won 14 of their last 16 games with their only losses coming to Charleston and West Virginia State last weekend. Reigning MEC Player of the Year Brenton Doyle is batting .420 with three home runs and 17 RBI to go along with 15 stolen bases in 17 attempts. Jared Carr is right behind Doyle in average at .419. Carr is second on the team with four home runs and has 19 RBI. In 32 innings of work, Ryan Potts is 2-2 with a 3.94 ERA and has 36 strikeouts. Shepherd is 13-1 at home this season.
FAIRMONT STATE AT A GLANCE
The Fighting Falcons are the only other team in the MEC—besides Concord—sporting a team ERA under five. Sam Aloi (2.10), Will Brown (2.32) and Michael Stout (3.46) all have ERAs under four of pitchers who have tossed at least 10 innings. Zach Musgrove is the team leader in average (.355), home runs (four) and RBI (22). Only one other FSU player, Kevin Ayala, is batting over .300 this season. Fairmont State plays all of its home games in Bridgeport, West Virginia—about 20 minutes from campus. Â
Â
