West Chester vs Shepherd
Game Details: Sunday, April 13 & Monday, April 14 I 1/3:30 P.M.
Location: Sunday-Shepherdstown, W.V. Monday-West Chester, Pa.
Coverage Links Sunday: Live Stats I Video
Coverage Links Monday: Live Stats I Video
Series: 14-7 (4-1 in last five)
WCU Links: NEWS I ROSTER I SCHEDULE I STATS
Shepherd Links: NEWS I ROSTER I SCHEDULE I STATS
Last Time Out
West Chester captured its fourth Bill Giles Invitational Championship in as many years on Wednesday afternoon, defeating Wilmington by a 4-1 final after scoring two runs in the third and tacking on two more in the fourth to erase an early deficit. Wilmington got an early lead in the second inning, but an Austin Stalker two-run home run in the third erased the deficit and gave the Golden Rams a 2-1 lead. John Dunion and Sean Szestowicki combined to stretch the lead to 4-1 in the fourth as Dunion brought home a run via a sac fly, while Szestowicki doubled home the last run of the game. Hits were at a premium on Wednesday as West Chester held Wilmington to just three hits and only one from the fifth inning on, while the Wildcats held the Golden Rams to just five hits in the win. Nick Noga was excellent as he earned his fourth win of the year with five strikeouts in three innings as one of seven Golden Ram pitchers used in the non-league victory.
Flock Talk
Sean Szestowicki and Avery Spencer remain first and second on the team offensively, batting .363 and .346 on the year with 41 and 37 hits, respectively. Casey Vaughan remains the team leader in runs scored with 36 on the year while batting .320, which is third-best on the team. Stalker, who hit his team-leading fifth home run of the year on Wednesday, is tied with Vaughan for third on the team in batting at .320 while posting an OPS of 1.013 with a team-best 29 RBI and a .570 slugging percentage.
On the mound, Kyle Lazer and Julian Costa remain the staff leaders at 7-1 and 6-1 on the year with ERAs of 1.76 and 2.36, along with opponent batting averages of .221 and .193. Lazer and Costa have combined for five complete games and have logged 83 innings between the two of them with 85 strikeouts, averaging just over a strikeout per inning, led by Lazer’s 44 strikeouts. Nick Noga has been another weekend starter throughout the year, going 4-2 with a 6.34 ERA and an opponent's batting average of .323 with 32 strikeouts, including his five on Wednesday. Kyle Kearns and Ryan DeHaven have the shared the fourth starter role throughout the year for West Chester, going 2-2 and 2-0 with ERAs of 6.23 and 3.20 and opponent batting averages of .275 and .260. Patrick Taney has been a great bullpen arm for West Chester throughout the season, going 1-0 with a save and a 1.98 ERA in 10 appearances with a .103 opponent batting average. Taney has 16 strikeouts to his name and has allowed just four hits but has authored 17 walks, which has led to him finding himself in a few jams throughout the season.
The Streak Continues
West Chester’s win in the Giles on Wednesday afternoon marked the fourth year in a row in which the Golden Rams have won the Bill Giles Invitational at Citizens Bank Park. West Chester heads into the weekend winners of 11-of-13, with the lone losses during that span coming in a series split at Shippensburg last weekend.
Yes Mother Nature…
After relatively good weather throughout March, the mid-Atlantic region has been reminded by Mother Nature that, yes, it is still spring in the mid-Atlantic. With rain throughout much of the first 11 days of April, the Golden Rams have not played at home since a March 28 sweep of Kutztown after moving its entire series against Shippensburg to the Raiders last weekend. This weekend also saw schedule changes as the Golden Rams series against Shepherd was pushed from Friday-Saturday to Sunday-Monday to accommodate the inch of rain in the forecast for the next 36 hours.
Rank and File
After splitting with Shippensburg last weekend, West Chester slipped to 14th in the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) poll and 21st in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) poll this week.
Series History
Since the first meeting between the two teams in the NCAA Tournament in May 2006, West Chester is 14-7 against Shepherd, with wins in four of the last five dating back to a split at Shepherd in April 2023.
Scouting Shepherd
Shepherd (16-17, 4-8) enters the weekend off a loss at Frostburg State on Wednesday afternoon following a split with Kutztown last weekend. The Rams captured the series opener from the Golden Bears on Friday by a 9-4 final before dropping the next two games (4-3, 6-1) and winning the series finale by a 5-2 final in Kutztown.
Nik Rubdendall leads Shepherd offensively with a .333 batting average with 19 runs and 18 RBI, while Aidan Greaney is close behind, batting .316 with a .673 slugging percentage and a team-best 27 RBI with 18 extra-base hits, including nine doubles and eight home runs.
Daniel Quintana is 4-2 on the year with a 2.54 ERA and an opponents' batting average of .235 in 39 innings of work as one of the Rams' top starting pitchers this season. Michael Burnley is 1-3 with a 3.79 ERA and a .235 opponent batting average in 35.2 innings of work over the course of 10 appearances and nine starts, while Trevor Sharp is 0-5 with a 6.98 ERA and a .262 opponents batting average in 10 appearances (eight starts) and 29.2 innings of work. Allen Miller has been the fourth starter for much of the year, posting a record of 3-1 with a 2.60 ERA and a .188 opponent batting average with 25 strikeouts in 27.2 innings of work.
