ROCK HILL, SC – The Winthrop baseball team is set to play its first midweek games of the season with a two game home-and-home series with The Citadel Bulldogs. The Eagles will host the Bulldogs in Rock Hill on Mar. 15 before traveling down for a contest in Charleston Mar. 16. Both games are scheduled for 6 p.m. starts.
Winthrop enters the two midweek games suffering a defeat in three straight contests last weekend to the Michigan Wolverines and Stony Brook Seawolves in the Bojangles Baseball Classic. The Eagles are 6-8 overall on the season.
The Winthrop offense is led by senior catcher Eddie Rohan with a .442 average at the plate and a team-high 11 RBI. Rohan, along with freshman outfielder TJ Olesczuk, has a team-best 11-game hitting streak entering the week. The hit streak is a career-high for Olesczuk, while it ties the career mark set by Rohan. He previously set the mark of a hit in 11 straight contests as a freshman in 2008. Sophomore outfielder/first baseman Patrick Gamblin also has the team's lone home run of the 2011 season.
Sophomore pitcher Eric Ruth is tied with junior pitcher Tyler Mizenko with 2-0 records on the season, while Ruth has a team-low 2.70 ERA for pitchers who have thrown 10.0 innings or more and an opponent average of .207. Mizenko has thrown in a team-best 22.1 innings with four starts.
The Bulldogs enter with a 7-8 overall and 3-3 mark in the Southern Conference. They are under the direction of head coach Fred Jordan who is currently in his 20th season at The Citadel. He holds a 673-480 overall record with the program. Joe Jackson leads the squad offensively with a .366 average at the plate, while Justin Mackert has 14 RBI on the season. Matt Simonelli, Drew DeKerlegand and Nick Orvin all have homered one time this season. Austin Pritcher is the team's top pitcher with a 3-1 record and 1.55 ERA in 29.0 innings pitched.
The Eagles lead the all-time series 20-17 over the Bulldogs which dates back to the 1988 season. Winthrop owns a 10-9 record in Rock Hill and 10-7 in Charleston. The Eagles won the first-ever meeting of the series 14-2 on Mar. 31, 1988 with the last contest coming with The Citadel winning 10-4 on May 18, 2010.
Winthrop and the Bulldogs are set to face each other a total of three times this season for the second consecutive year. The Citadel swept all three games last season over the Eagles.
Winthrop will open Big South Conference play this weekend with a three-game series against the VMI Keydets.
