CHARLESTON, W. VA. – The University of Charleston baseball team will remain at home this weekend as they gear up for a three-game series with PSAC opponent University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. 
 
A LOOK AT PITT JOHNSTOWN 
To this point in the early 2020 season, Johnstown has jumped out to an impressive 8-0 start having played two four-game series with MEC opponents West Virginia Wesleyan and Fairmont State. 
 
The Mountain Cats have been playing well both at the plate and on the mound. 
 
As a team, Johnstown is hitting .341 scoring 64 runs on 75 hits while drawing 46 walks and have only 32 strikeouts. 
 
On the mound, the Mountain Cats have a 3.50 ERA as a team surrendering only 33 runs on 41 hits and have fanned 84 batters allowing only 37 walks. 
 
Johnstown is led by their dual-threat Isaiah Kearns. Kearns has proved to be one of their most dangerous bats in their lineup while also putting up some impressive numbers on the mound as one of their starting pitchers. 
 
Kearns has posted a .522 avg. to this point in the season with 12 hits, four of them coming off of doubles and two of them via homeruns. He has racked up 10 RBI's while slugging .957 and has a .633 on base percentage. 
 
On the mound, Kearns has a 2-0 record backed up by a solid 1.40 ERA. He has surrendered only 4 hits and two walks while garnering 16 punchouts in 10.0 innings of work. Opposing teams have managed to scrape across only two earned runs against the right-hander.
 
Another threat at the plate for the Mountain Cats is sophomore infielder Owen McKeever. Johnstown relies heavily on his steady bat as he has provided his team with 12 RBI's coming off of 13 hits. He has a .448 batting average and has smacked three doubles and one triple in the first two weekends of the season. 
 
Johnstown has had quality production on the mound from junior right-hander Dylan Heid. To this point in the season, Heid has thrown 9.1 innings allowing only two hits against him while giving up only one earned run netting him a 0.75 ERA. Opposing teams have had trouble figuring him out. Heid has held opposing teams to a .067 batting average against him.
 
Todd Williams is the head skipper for the Mountain Cats. Williams is in his 23rd season as the head coach for Johnstown. In his career, he has a 510-489-4 overall record. He is the most "winningest" coach in the program's history.
 
"Coach Williams has been there for a long time, another veteran coach that is going to do a good job of coaching those guys up. They play in a tough league, the PSAC East, so you know that they are going to be well-coached," said UC head coach Robbie Britt. 
 
Charleston will have their work cut out for them this week as they take on yet another solid program for the third week in a row. Johnstown is ranked one position higher than UC in the NCBWA Atlantic Region Polls. The Mountain Cats come into the weekend ranked No.7 while the Golden Eagles are ranked No. 8. 
 
CHARLESTON'S OUTLOOK
Charleston heads into this weekend's series coming off of a hard-fought battle with a tough Ashland University team. The Golden Eagles managed to grab a win in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader. They left the series with a 1-2 record on the weekend against a solid nationally ranked team. 
 
Despite coming away with two losses, Charleston was able to take away many positives. Two of those being the performances they received from junior catcher Drew Hefner and junior pitcher Logan Campbell. 
 
Hefner was 5-9 (.556 avg.) on the weekend with a .692 on base percentage, four walks, a run scored and a big three RBI double in game two of the series helping his team take down Ashland 8-0. 
 
Campbell pitched in that same game giving his team a quality start. He racked up 14 strikeouts, scattering six hits while surrendering only one walk and allowed no runs to score in 6.1 innings of work. His performance helped guide the Golden Eagles to their 8-0 victory over Ashland on Saturday night. 
 
Given their performances, Hefner and Campbell both earned MEC recognition. Hefner was given the nod for MEC position player of the week and Campbell earned the MEC pitcher of the week honor. 
 
Head coach Robbie Britt was excited to see his players being recognized for their respective performances.
 
"Both of those guys are what I would call 'Billboard Players'. If we were to put a billboard up for the University of Charleston baseball, those would be two of the guys that you would put on there," said Britt. "They are great representatives of the program and anytime that you have those guys that positively impact your culture and are also getting it done on the field, that is where you start to build something that is really special. So, I am happy for them, and it is a reflection of how hard they have worked in the offseason and in the preseason getting to this point." 
 
UC will look to these two players to continue to produce and will rely on them heading into the weekend to come out with a few wins. 
 
For the Golden Eagles as a whole, they have played pretty solid through the first seven games of the season. 
 
On the offensive side, they are hitting .230 having scored 34 runs coming off of 27 RBI's while slugging .380 and have a .370 OBP. 
 
In terms of pitching, as a team, the Golden Eagles have a 2.88 ERA, have allowed only 33 hits, 20 runs, 16 earned runs, have racked up 57 strikeouts and have allowed only 23 free passes. 
 
Having played some worthy opponents in the past few weeks, Charleston has shown well for themselves having a 3-4 overall record to this point. Charleston is happy with where they are at currently but are still looking for ways to continue to improve as they move forward.
 
"When we go back into training for this week, we have got to continue to work on skill execution," said Britt. "I think we ran ourselves out of some innings again. We are not taking advantage of certain opportunities that present themselves with what the defense has given us."
 
The focus for the week has been to get back and stick with the fundamentals while emphasizing skill execution.
 
"(This week we are) going back through our fundamentals and trying to make sure that we are staying sharp," said Britt. "It is tough when you don't have a midweek game because typically that midweek games gives you an opportunity to bounce back off of a series loss, or to build upon what you have done and get some other guys some AB's. But the way that our conference is set up, we don't have that luxury so (this week) we are going to try to recreate some of those situations by scrimmaging a little bit."
 
Coach Britt is pleased with what his pitchers have been able to do so far this year and looks for that continued success heading into this weekend. The one thing that he believes will be a difference-maker is being able to capitalize more often with runners in scoring position. 
 
"I think we left 10 on base on Sunday and a whole slew of guys on base in the doubleheader on Saturday as well as the ones we did against Wingate. For us, we are 'getting into the Redzone' to use a football term, but we are not able to 'punch it in'. We are walking away with field goals or turnovers, and you just can't afford to do that when you play really good teams." Said Britt. "For us, it's going back to our approach, not trying to do too much, attack the center of the field, put the ball in play and when you need to move runners, move runners."
 
The key seems to be continuing to improve from an offensive perspective. But coach Britt is pleased with how his team has played to this point in the season. 
 
"I am happy with our process so far," said Britt. "Especially for where we have been in years past. Obviously, I wasn't here but I think the players, and everybody feel that we can play at this level and at a national level. And now we just have to go out and try to earn the result through our process."
 
COVERAGE
This weekend's games have been moved from their original times to be played on Sunday, March 1 and Monday, March 2. Sunday will be a double-header with first pitch scheduled for 1:00 p.m. and the second game scheduled to start 30 minutes following the conclusion of the first game. The series will wrap up on Monday with first pitch scheduled for noon. Coverage of the game can be found at the following links. 
 
Live Broadcast: https://mountaineast.tv/charleston/
Live Stats: https://ucgoldeneagles.com/sidearmstats/baseball/summary