Concord Stats -
West Virginia State Stats -
Live Stats -
Live Video
ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University baseball team welcomes West Virginia State to Anderson Field 1:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday for the start of Mountain East Conference South Division play.
LIVE COVERAGE
Stats: Live in-game statistics will be available courtesy of the Concord University Sports Information Department.
Video: All four games of the series will be streamed live by the Concord Sports Information Department.
RECORDS
The Mountain Lions have won four straight games and are 16-7 overall and 7-5 in the conference.
West Virginia State is 12-14 overall, but has compiled a MEC record of 8-4.
SOUTHERN SUPERIORITY
To start divisional play, five teams in the MEC South are separated by just three games. Charleston is atop the division at 10-2 while West Virginia State and UVa.-Wise are both 8-4. Concord is tied with West Virginia Wesleyan at 7-5 entering the weekend. Along with Concord hosting WVSU, West Virginia Wesleyan welcomes UC while UVa.-Wise travels to Glenville State. The top three teams in each division make the MEC Tournament. While CU and Wesleyan would be on the outside looking in, in the south, both teams would be two games ahead of second place Fairmont State in the north division. This season, the MEC South went 44-28 against the north.
STRINGING IT TOGETHER
During its four-game win streak, the Mountain Lions have collected a total of 61 hits including a season-best 20 in Wednesday's 19-5 win at Davis & Elkins. It represents the most hits for Concord over a four-game stretch since it had 77 hits in a four-game series versus West Virginia Wesleyan April 14-15, 2017. Individually, junior catcher
Jakob Divers and junior outfielder
Ryan Fralin each have eight hits in the last four games. Senior catcher
Jordan Clark and senior infielder
Brett Simmons have added seven apiece. In his last two starts, freshman catcher
Chance Davis has five hits. Since last Saturday, CU has seen its team batting go up from .314 to .331.
THE REAL SEASON
Junior pitcher
Trent Abernathy improved to 3-0 in MEC games this season with Concord's 10-7 road win at Fairmont State. In all three conference starts this season, the Harrisonburg, Virginia native has struck out at least six batters. Going back to last season, Abernathy is 8-0 in conference games and has struck out 57 batters in 52.2 innings pitched. At the plate, sophomore infielder
Anthony Stehlin is hitting .500 (19-for-38) during MEC play, and 10 of his 19 hits have gone for extra bases. Not far behind is Divers who is hitting .474 in conference games. Junior outfielder
Adam Linkous has a .436 batting average in league contests while Simmons has driven in 11 runs in 12 MEC games.
CLIMBING THE LADDER
With a three-run home run Wednesday at Davis & Elkins, senior catcher
Jordan Clark moved into fourth place by himself in career home runs at CU as he hit his 30
th. Additionally, the Scott Depot, West Virginia native is now second in career RBI with 171 at Concord. Greyson Schram is the only other player in program history to rank top five in both home runs and RBI.
COUPLE OF OLD RIVALS
Concord and West Virginia State have meant 81 previous times with WVSU owning the series advantage, 48-33. Last season, the Yellow Jackets won three of the four games. Two years ago, CU won three games against West Virginia State. Clark, who grew up 11 miles from the WVSU campus, is hitting .461 (18-for-39) with four home runs, four doubles and 18 RBI in his career against West Virginia State. Over the last two years, Webb has had success versus WVSU pitching. The Whitby, Ontario native is batting .516 (16-for-31) with two home runs, two doubles and 12 RBI. Concord's lone win against West Virginia State was a 12-4 victory in which Abernathy pitched for CU. In 2017 at Anderson Field, senior pitcher
Troy Beckner was part of a 14-0 shutout over WVSU to open the series.
WEST VIRGINIA STATE AT A GLANCE
Though batting just .291 on the season, the Yellow Jackets are hitting .320 in 12 conference games. Overall, Connor Slagill has hit eight home runs to go with 32 RBI. Matt Harrison has blasted three home runs and has 19 RBI. West Virginia State is 6-2 at home this season, but is just 6-12 away from its Institute campus. Kenneth Daniels is 3-3 in seven starts and has an ERA of 3.38.
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