This Week: Notre Dame College travels to UVa-Wise and Concord this weekend. The Falcons will visit UVa-Wise on Saturday, March 23, before heading to Concord on Sunday, March 24. Both days' doubleheaders are scheduled to start at 1 and 3 p.m.
Records: The Falcons are 7-12 (1-3 MEC) after falling in three of their first four conference games. UVa-Wise is 9-12 (3-1 MEC) and are on a three-game winning streak. Concord is 8-4 (2-2 MEC) after splitting both series last week against Wheeling Jesuit and West Liberty.
Coaches Corner: Len Barker is in his eighth season as the head coach at Notre Dame. Barker is 159-197-1, 96-79 MEC. Hank Banner entered his 23rd season at the helm of the UVa-Wise baseball team in 2019. He has a career total of 430 wins. Concord's Kevin Garrett is also a veteran coach as he is in his 19th season with the Mountain Lions after coaching from 1996-2010 and coming back to CU in 2016. Garrett has a career record of 438-329, 56-44 MEC.
Rankings: None of the teams competing this week were ranked in the March 18 National College Baseball Writers' Association Poll.
Series History: Notre Dame is 4-6 against UVa-Wise and 5-13 against Concord. The Falcons went 0-2 against UVa-Wise and 1-1 against Concord last season.
Noting the Falcons: Notre Dame is already off to a better start than 2018, when the Falcons began MEC play 0-7. The Falcons ended up 16-16 in conference play last year. NDC will look for its first winning record in conference play since 2016. Despite the three losses last weekend, many player's batting averages rose.
Joseph Paskell now has a season batting average of .400 while
Rick Phillips (.371) and
Zach Santoro (.342) have also been hitting well. Phillips leads the team with 26 hits, but Santoro with 25 and Paskell with 24 are not far behind.
Lukas Thompson also had a strong weekend with multiple hits in three of the four games. Thompson now has a batting average of .297 and is tied for second on the team with 13 runs.
Noting the Cavaliers: The Falcons bats will have to compete with UVa-Wise's pitching on Saturday to keep things alive as the Cavaliers have four pitchers with five or more appearances who hold ERAs of 3.00 or lower. Duncan Greg has been the ace for UVa-Wise so far this season. Greg is 3-0 in six starts and has struck out 39 batters. Duncan has only thrown more than five innings once this season, though.
Noting the Mountain Lions: Concord, with only 12 games played this season, only have three pitchers who have thrown more than 10 innings. Those pitchers have performed well those with ERAs of 2.25, 2.81 and 3.18. The bats for the Mountain Lions have been hitting as well as five starters have averages above .300. If the Falcons can control the offense of Concord, they have a good chance at winning. The Mountain Lions are 0-3 in games where they score three runs or fewer; they are also 1-4 in games where they score five runs or fewer.
