Baseball Series Thread: Marshall vs FAU - Apr 14th - 16th, 2017




What:      Marshall (17-15, 6-6 C-USA) at Florida Atlantic (22-9-1, 9-3 C-USA)

When:     Fri, Apr 14th at 6:30 PM
                Sat, Apr 15th at 4:00 PM
                Sun, Apr 16th at 12:00 PM


Where:    FAU Baseball Stadium

Stream:   CUSA.tv *FEE

Stats:       Here


Series:

The Owls own a 6-3 advantage against the Herd.


Projected Starting Pitchers

Fri:        MAR - LHP Joshua Shapiro (1-3, 3.98)
             FAU - RHP Alex House (4-1, 4.56)

Sat:       MAR - RHP Wade Martin (3-1, 2.22)
             FAU - RHP Mark Stewart (1-1, 4.55)

Sun:      MAR - TBA
             FAU - LHP Jake Miednik (4-2, 6.26)


Game Notes

Owls

The Owls will look to keep pace in the top third of the standings this weekend against Marshal. They, along side Old Dominion, sit one game back of league leader Southern Miss. The completion of this series will mark the half way point of conference matchups for FAU.

Stephen Kerr paces all C-USA hitters in on-base percentage (.486), with teammates Tyler Frank fourth (.480) and Austin Langham sixth (.455). That latter duo is tied for second in walks with 26, and Frank is fourth in the conference in hits (48), runs (36) and RBI (31).

The FAU bullpen continues to shine, as they have 11 of the team's 22 victories, with a 3.13 ERA and 131 strikeouts in 129 1/3 innings. In C-USA play, they are even better at 4-1 overall with a 2.38 ERA and four players which are unscored upon.


Herd

Marshall is riding a four game win streak into the weekend. After taking 2-of-3 from UAB last weekend in a relatively low scoring series, the Herd defeated Morehead State (4-3) and Ohio (12-9) in midweek action.

Sophomore pitcher Wade Martin tossed a career-high nine innings with seven strikeouts in a Saturday win against the Blazers. Martin lowered his ERA to 2.22, fourth lowest in conference in the process.

Shane Hanon holds a team-high .340 batting average with two home runs and 14 RBIs. Hanon currently has the longest hit streak this season for Marshall with 16 games. Tyler Ratliff (.291) leads the Herd with 37 hits and 34 RBIs. Sam Finfer and Ratliff lead the team with eight home runs each.

Florida Atlantic gets a superb showing from House under the lights!

#OWLS WIN! #FAU takes G1 7-3! Miranda 2RBI HR, Puerta 2-4 2RBI. WP House = FANTASTIC - 9IP, 6H, 3R, 1ER, 1BB, 5K 🔥G2 Sat 4pm. #GoOwls! 👌 pic.twitter.com/XjTjz37Dcm

— FAU Owl's Nest (@TheOwlsNest_ITB) April 15, 2017

UPDATED SCHEDULE: 2017 FAU Baseball Schedule - FAU Owl's Nest

Just when I was losing confidence in the starting pitchers, House throws a master piece. Great crowd !  Great night of baseball.

Coach Mac on House's performance:

“Did a great job, that kind of goes without saying … It was a great performance. He got stronger as the game got on, his breaking stuff got better, his changeup got better as the game went on. Again, I thought he deserved a chance to finish it, and he did.”

OWLS WIN! #FAU erases 5-0 deficit to win G2 12-6! Langham 2RBI, Frank 2RBI, Miranda 2RBI. WP Nowatnick 4IP, 1H, 0R, 3K. G3 Sun 12p #GoOwls!👌 pic.twitter.com/lmKdddL8mt

— FAU Owl's Nest (@TheOwlsNest_ITB) April 15, 2017

Book the series! Florida Atlantic rallies with a huge seventh inning that scores seven runs.

Mark Nowatnick tosses the final four frames and gives up only one hit in the process.

Tyler Frank was 3-for-5 with a homer and two RBI, while David Miranda had a pair of RBI doubles.

“I thought we had a shot if we got to their bullpen,” said Head Coach John McCormack. “Our guys had some really good nice at-bats."

"It was a good win, Mark pitched really well. Jones did a nice job and Sanderson did a nice job. It wasn’t textbook pretty, but they only gave up one run between them, and then Mark was sensational."

The Owls outhit the Herd 13-10 overall on the afternoon. They will go for the sweep tomorrow at high noon.

Outstanding coaching and outstanding relief pitching. FAU spotted Marshall five runs before a slow and steady come back. FAU erupted for seven in one inning causing Marshall to lose it's cool. After a bench clearing pushing and shoving match, two Marshall player were ejected (should have been three). IMO, the FAU players had every right to defend them selves and did nothing wrong. Great come back. Great crowd. And again great coaching. Johns best year that I have seen. And I've seen a bunch.

Nowatnick deserves a shout out. Four inning of one hit relief. Can't do any better.

The good news, Miednik didn't give up nine runs in the first inning today. The bad news, he gave up two.

Owls go in order for their first turn.

MAR 2  FAU 0

Top 2nd

Despite walking the lead-off batter, Miednik has his best inning in quite some time, striking out two and picking off the runner.

The Owls are still in search of their first hit and go in order once again.

MAR 2  FAU 0

Top 3rd

Saturday and Sunday starting pitching is sooo shaky.