Concord Stats -
Notre Dame Stats -
Live Stats -
Live Video
ATHENS, W.Va. – The Concord University baseball team opens up Mountain East Conference Tournament play 7:00 p.m. Thursday at Epling Stadium in Beckley, West Virginia as it faces Notre Dame.
LIVE COVERAGE
Stats: The Mountain East Conference will provide live statistics of every game throughout the tournament.
Video: Live streaming video with play-by-play will also be available for the duration of the tournament.
SECOND GAME SCENARIOS
With a win on Thursday, Concord would return to the field at 7:00 p.m. Friday to face the winner of Charleston and Fairmont State. A loss would send CU to a 3:30 p.m. game Friday against the winner of Shepherd and UVa.-Wise.
HOT STREAK
The Mountain Lions finished the regular season with a four-game sweep of UVa.-Wise to lock up a spot in the MEC Tournament. It was the second time Concord had a four-game sweep in 2019 after taking all four games from West Virginia Wesleyan in the middle of April. Senior catcher
Jordan Clark, junior catcher
Jordan Clark and senior infielder
Brett Simmons all hit .500 or better in the four-game series to propel the offense. Meanwhile, the CU pitching staff was stellar as none of the four starters, seniors
Troy Beckner and
Will Guay along with sophomores
Logan Morrison and
Anthony Stehlin, allowed more than two earned runs. Each starter also went at least five innings.
NEW RECORD
Speaking of CU's pitching staff, Concord set a new program record in strikeouts as a staff with 353. The Mountain Lions set the record at Bluefield State, breaking the previous record of 319. Guay is tied for fourth in the conference in strikeouts with 75. The West Palm Beach, Florida native is four strikeouts away from setting the program single-season record for strikeouts. In his first full season as a starter, Morrison is averaging over a strikeout per inning, 51 in 49.1 innings.
WELL BALANCED
The Maroon and Gray had 10 players named All-MEC Wednesday which was a league high. The next closest was Charleston and Shepherd, each with seven. Guay and Stehlin were All-MEC First Team. Clark, junior outfielder
Ryan Fralin and junior outfielder
Adam Linkous were all All-MEC Second Team performer. Beckner, junior catcher
Jakob Divers, junior infielder
Nathan Neff, Simmons and senior infielder
Evan Webb were all on the All-MEC Honorable Mention list. Linkous was a selected as a relief pitcher after he recorded back-to-back in the final two games of the UVa.-Wise series. In the process, Linkous also tied the program record for saves in a season with six. Offensively, all eight of Concord's field players are batting over .300 for the season after Linkous got his average above .300 with a strong four games at UVa.-Wise.
TALE OF TWO GAMES
Concord and Notre Dame split a doubleheader earlier this season in Athens on March 24 as Concord won the first game 12-2, but NDC came back to win the second, 6-3. The biggest difference in the games was CU hitting 8-for-18 with runners in scoring position in the first game. Simmons led the way by going 2-for-3 with four RBI. In game one, Concord's top four hitters of Stehlin, Simmons, Webb and Clark combined to go 10-for-16. However, in the second game the Mountain Lions were just 2-for-8 with men in scoring position.
REVENGE UNDER THE LIGHTS
Like the 2018 MEC Tournament, the Mountain Lions open up with a night game at Epling Stadium. Last season, Concord lost 9-0 to West Liberty. CU will also be looking for its first win at the MEC Tournament since the 2015 season. In last year's opener, Concord was held to three hits by now-graduated West Liberty ace Justin Retzer. Clark had two of the three hits for the Maroon and Gray.
NOTRE DAME AT A GLANCE
The Falcons had four All-MEC performers on Wednesday led by First Team All-MEC reliever Todd Marshall who tied with Linkous for saves. Two of the other three NDC players to make the all-conference honors were starting pitchers Tyler Gault and Ty Shoaff. Designated hitter Joe Paskell joined Gault and Shoaff on the All-MEC Second Team. Notre Dame has the third-best ERA in the MEC behind Shepherd and Concord. The Falcons finished the regular season strong by taking three out of four games from both Shepherd and Urbana.
