The Stags are coming in hot after sweeping the weekend series against Saint Peter’s, where the bats woke up and came through. The team will now travel to Vestal, N.Y., at Binghamton University for a weekend series with two games against the Bearcats, followed by a game against Seton Hall to wrap up the weekend.
“We want to run it back and get another ring while giving Coach Currier a good send-off,” said senior outfielder Payten Wawruck. To do so, the Stags will need to continue this momentum for the rest of the season, and picking up some wins this weekend will help.
The Stags will start their weekend series this Friday at 1:00 p.m. against the Bearcats. So far this season, Binghamton is 8-11(3-3), coming off a series win against the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where their offense caught fire to score 35 runs.
The Bearcats this season have been led by their young bats, with sophomore outfielder Hunter Grant pacing the team in homers with four. Sophomore outfielder Matt Bolton leads the team in batting average at .320, and has five doubles. Sophomore first baseman Steven Kraus leads the team in RBIs with 14.
The pitching staff for Binghamton has struggled so far this season, but there have still been some standouts like junior pitcher Jake Dally, who has a 3.38 earned run average with 17 strikeouts. Another key pitcher is junior Jackson Mitchell, who has a 1.17 ERA, four saves, and 21 strikeouts.
Then, the Stags will finish their weekend series with a game against Seton Hall on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. Seton Hall has a record of 10-9 with no games against conference competition yet.
The Pirates have had some notable results against MAAC opponents Manhattan and Merrimack, beating both by scores of 7-2 and 11-10, respectively.
They were also able to beat Hofstra in a three-game series twice. Seton Hall has an older roster than Binghamton with sophomore pitchers like Steven Svenson and Mason Christopher. Svenson has an ERA of 3.37 with 22 strikeouts. Christopher has a 3.57 ERA with 25 strikeouts.
The notable hitters for the Pirates are junior infielder Ryan Frontera, who leads the team in batting average with a .357, and junior infielder Gabe Cavazzoni who leads the team in RBIs (13), doubles (7) and triples (3).
Fairfield is on a six-game conference winning streak, and they’re hoping to continue that momentum into their games this weekend. The Stags are also on record watch with senior outfielder Matthew Bucciero, who is looking to break the program all-time home run record.
In the recent sweep of MAAC opponent Saint Peter’s, the offense took over for Fairfield, and senior catcher JP Kuczik had an amazing series, clocking in multiple multi-hit games but also showing a good eye in the batter’s box, drawing multiple walks.
Junior pitcher Ben Alekson pitched in the first game of the series, putting up a stat line of six innings pitched, two earned runs, and four strikeouts.
Fairfield’s stat leaders start with Bucciero, who leads the team in batting average with a .324, and home runs with four so far this season. Another offensive standout is senior infielder Luke Nomura, who leads the team in RBIs with 19 and is tied for the lead in doubles with six.
On the pitching side, Alekson is the team leader for ERA so far this season with a 1.05. Another player who has stepped up for the Stags this season is junior Jimmy Mulvaney, who got his first save in the first game of the Saint Peter’s series and has an ERA of 1.23.
“To see him go out as one guy against the entire squad of a sixth-ranked team and shut them down, it’s a motivating factor,” said Wawruck when talking about Alekson.
These stats do not include Fairfield’s Tuesday afternoon game against Central Connecticut State University, which was not played in time for publication.