Hurricanes Begin ACC Road Swing at No. 5 Virginia
March 22, 2007
Miami (14-10, 2-4 ACC) continues Atlantic Coast Conference play this weekend when the Hurricanes head to Charlottesville, Va, to face No. 5 Virginia at Davenport Field at the UVa Baseball Stadium. Game times are 6 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday and 12 p.m. on Sunday. Sunday’s game will be televised live on CSS. All three games will be broadcast by the Student Voice of UM, WVUM (90.5 FM), which can also be picked up online at www.wvum.org. Saturday’s WVUM is only available via the internet.
ABOUT THE MIAMI HURRICANES
Miami is coming off a 4-1 record last week and won its first Atlantic Coast Conference series of the season. The Hurricanes continue a tough road stretch of their season when they head to No. 5 Virginia this weekend. It will be the second road trip against a top 10 team in league play in the month of March. UM heads to No. 7 Clemson the following weekend. Miami hit .346 in the Maryland series which included a season-high 18 hits in the first game of the series. Miami out-hit Maryland, 50-33. The Hurricanes are 9-3 when they have at least 10 hits in a game. Miami averages 9.3 runs when they have at least 10 hits in a game.
Freshman shortstop Ryan Jackson led UM in the Maryland series hitting .636 while going 7-for-11 with four runs, two doubles and five RBI. He went 7-for-15 last week. Freshman catcher Jason Hagerty and sophomore center fielder Blake Tekotte each went 5-for-10 with three RBI against the Terrapins. Hagerty had back-to-back multiple-hit games. Tekotte turned in a great week for Miami as he went 8-for-15 with two runs scored and four RBI. He hit safely in all five games. Miami’s pitching staff posted a 2.33 ERA. UM’s starting rotation of Eric Erickson, Scott Maine and Enrique Garcia kept Maryland to two earned runs on 15 hits. Erickson had a career-high 11 strikeouts as he six-hit Maryland through seven innings. He leads the ACC in individual pitching with an ACC-best 1.54 ERA. He has 33 strikeouts in 35 innings. Freshman third baseman Mark Sobolewski leads the team with 28 RBI. He and teammate Yonder Alonso rank in the top 10 in the ACC in runs batted in.
ABOUT THE VIRGINIA CAVALIERS
Virginia returns home for its first Atlantic Coast Conference series at Davenport Field. The Cavaliers (20-4, 3-3 ACC) picked up their 20th win of the season Tuesday in an 11-1 victory over Richmond. The Cavaliers have won four of their last five games and are 13-0 at home this season. UVa won their first ACC series of the season winning two of three games at then No. 1 North Carolina. Sophomore right-hander Jacob Thompson has emerged as the leader of a pitching staff that is 20-4 with a 2.55 team ERA. Thompson is 5-0 with a 1.98 ERA. He has 38 strikeouts in 36.1 innings. UVa’s pitchers have struck out 195 batters in 211.2 innings and walked only 58. Offensively, the Cavaliers are hitting .356 led by Greg Miclat, who is tied for the team-lead with 41 hits along with left fielder Brandon Guyer. Miclat also leads the team with 32 runs scored while also going 18-of-20 in stolen bases. Virginia has 61 stolen bases already this season. Virginia will send the rotation of Thompson (5-0, 1.98), freshman LHP Matt Packer (2-1, 3.48 ERA) and junior LHP Sean Doolittle (4-1, 3.24 ERA) to the mound this weekend. The trio is 11-2 this season.
THE UM-VIRGINIA SERIES
The Hurricanes lead the all-time series, 10-6. Virginia won last season’s series in Coral Gables taking game one and two, 8-2, and 15-7. UM won the series final, 9-8 in 10 innings. The Hurricanes won the last series in Charlottesville. All three of those games were one-run games.
