Baseball Travels To Homestead
Feb. 21, 2002
Coral Gables, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) — – The University of Miami baseball team (5-4), ranked as high as seventh by Baseball America, travels to the Homestead Sports Complex to open up the sixth annual Homestead Challenge. The Hurricanes will play two games in Homestead against Florida International on Friday and Kansas State on Saturday. Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m. starts. Miami will conclude the weekend with Lipscomb University at Mark Light Stadium at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
The Friday night game will be televised live by Fox Sports Net Florida and carried by UM’s radio flagships Sports Radio 560 WQAM and in Spanish on WACC 830 AM Radio Paz. The Sunday game will be carried by WQAM as well. All three games can be heard live on the Internet at hurricanesports.com or on the student voice of the Hurricanes, WVUM 90.5 FM.
On the mound for the Hurricanes Friday night will be junior RHP Troy Roberson (0-0, 2.57 ERA). Roberson will be followed by sophomore RHP T.J. Prunty (0-0, 3.48 ERA) Saturday evening and junior RHP Kiki Bengochea (0-2, 10.64 ERA) on Sunday.
After last weekend’s three-game sweep of visiting Minnesota at Mark Light Stadium, several Hurricanes improved on their offensive statistics with at least seven players adding 55 or more points to their batting averages. As a team, UM put together as much offense in the last three games against the Golden Gophers as they had done in the season’s first six games combined. Most notably, the team’s batting average jumped 66 points from .251 through six games to .317 after nine games and the home run total quadrupled from four to 16.
For last weekend’s series against Minnesota, Head Coach Jim Morris made what he noted was the most drastic shuffle to his line-up in 25 years of coaching. Kevin Howard moved to shortstop from third base. Javy Rodriguez moved to second base from shortstop. Matt Dryer moved from first base to third base. Haas Pratt went from designated hitter to first base. Danny Matienzo went from catcher to designated hitter. Freshman Erick San Pedro made his collegiate debut at catcher and started in all three games.
With the exception of San Pedro, who batted .500 in his first three games played last weekend, Rodriguez still leads the team offensively with a .474 batting average. Two others players Dryer (.419) and Jim Burt (.400) also enter the Homestead Challenge with .400 or better batting averages. Kevin Mannix leads the team in RBI (10), while Matienzo has a team-best five home runs.
The 2002 season marks the fifth consecutive year Miami has participated in the Homestead Challenge at the Homestead Sports Complex. Miami is 10-1 in Homestead Challenge games dating back to 1998. Most notable is that five of the top six paid attendance games at the Homestead Sports Complex, including the all-time high, are Miami games. The Miami/FIU game in 2000 drew a Homestead Challenge-best 3,861, while UM’s two games with FIU in 2001 drew the No. 2 (2,782) and No. 3 (2,317) attendance marks. The Hurricanes have also placed three players on Homestead Challenge All-Tournament teams, including Bengochea in 2001, Kevin Howard in 2000 and Daryl Roque in 1999.
The Hurricanes began play at the Homestead Challenge in the tournament’s second season, 1998, with an 8-6 victory over Drexel in front of the No. 6 crowd (1,861). In UM’s 1999 National Championship season, the Hurricanes played in back-to-back games defeating Marist, 15-1, and falling to Iowa, 9-3. The Iowa game drew the fourth-most fans at the Challenge (1,703). The 2000 season saw UM play three games at the Challenge, defeating Eastern Michigan in back-to-back nights, 10-1 and 9-1, and FIU, 5-2. For the first time last season, Miami hosted Homestead Challenge games at Mark Light Stadium as the Hurricanes defeated Albany, Pittsburgh and Cornell at the Light. At the Homestead Complex the Hurricanes defeated FIU twice, 10-2 and 2-0, in back-to-back games to open the Challenge.
Miami leads the all-time series with FIU, 81-19, dating back to the 1973 season. The series is the third-longest on-going rivalry on the UM baseball schedule behind Florida (1940) and Florida State (1951). Miami has won 12 of the past 17 meetings with FIU, including five of the past seven. Head Coach Jim Morris is 20-9 vs. FIU since coming to Miami in 1994. Earlier this season, on Feb. 6, FIU handed Miami a 7-1 loss at a sold-out University Park. FIU out-hit Miami 13-6 and scored three runs in the first and seventh innings to hold off the Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes will be facing Kansas State and Lipscomb for the first time.
Remember that your 2001 National Champion Miami Hurricanes take on the Major League Florida Marlins at Mark Light Stadium on Wednesday, March 6th at 3:05 p.m. For more information on UM athletics and the Hurricane baseball team, log on to www.hurricanesports.com. For ticket information call 1-800 GO CANES.
