CHARLESTON, W. Va. – The University of Charleston baseball team will be back at home again this weekend as they get prepared to take on the Raiders from Shippensburg University. This series will mark the first time these two programs have ever squared off against one another.
 
A LOOK AT SHIPPENSBURG 
To kick off their 2020 season, the Raiders have posted a 5-8 record overall. They started the year off being swept by Stanislaus State out in Turlock California. The following weekend they played a ranked Catawba team, they proceeded to be swept by them as well. Starting off the season 0-6, they went out to Flemington, NJ to take on Queens University (N.Y.). They would end up taking four straight games from the Knights. Finally, they played their first series at home last weekend as they took on Le Moyne University when they won one game in the three-game series. 
 
Shippensburg is led by head coach Matt Jones who is entering his 15th season at the helm of the Raiders program. Jones has an overall record of 368-360-1 in his time at SU. He has taken the team to two Atlantic Region Championships, two DII College World Series appearances, a PSAC Championship and a PSAC Eastern Division title. 
 
A season ago, SU was 20-27 overall with a 12-16 record in the PSAC. That record did not allow them to partake in their conference tournament at the end of the year. 
 
There are three bats in the lineup that provide some serious energy for Shippensburg.
 
The first is junior outfielder Scout Knotts. He is more of a table-setter for the Raiders at the top of the lineup. He is leading the team in terms of batting average with a .455 avg. He also has 20 hits on the season including, 6 2B, 6 RBI and a .591 slugging percentage. 
 
Another offensive threat for the Raiders is the bat of junior catcher Ben Werkheiser. To this point of the 2020 season, Werkheiser has a .404 batting average with a total of 19 hits on the year. He has tallied five 2B, one 3B, three HR, 17 RBI and has a slugging percentage of .745. 
 
Shippensburg also relies heavily on the power bat of sophomore Tony Vavaroutsos. He is currently hitting .390 on the year with 16 hits. Of those 16 hits, two are doubles and five of them are home runs. He has tallied 14 RBI's on the year accompanied by a .805 slugging percentage. He also has a .500 OBP through the first 13 games of the season. 
 
On the mound, Shippensburg's best starter is senior Kyle Lysy. He currently has a 2-2 record on the year having thrown one complete game. He has an ERA of 1.14 in 23.2 innings pitched. He has given up 24 hits, only three earned runs, six walks, one double, one home run and has sat down 23 batters. Opponents are hitting just .258 against him. 
 
In relief, the guy that Shippensburg has turned to the most often this season is senior Jack Jenkens. He has pitched 10.2 innings allowing six earned runs to cross home plate, has given up three walks, struck out six batters and has an ERA of 5.06. 
"They are going to be very diverse offensively," said head coach Robbie Britt. "They are going to have some guys that can run extremely well, at the top of the order, some contact guys, and they are also going to have a couple that can put it out of the yard. For us, we are going to have to continue to pitch extremely well, play good defense and execute at the plate."
 
CHARLESTON'S OUTLOOK
The Golden Eagles enter this weekend coming off of a three-game sweep of PSAC opponent the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. With the sweep, UC was able to improve their overall record to 6-4 on the year with a 5-2 record when playing at the Welch Athletic Complex. UC's record this season is something to be proud of as they have played some very worthy opponents this season. That of Wingate, Ashland and UPJ. All of which have a winning record in this portion of the season. 
 
With momentum in UC's favor following the sweep, they will look to stay on track heading into the weekend. 
 
"This week the focus has been to try cleaning up some of the mistakes from the Pitt-Johnstown series. At the same time creating a competitive atmosphere (in practice) has been big because being on spring break, coming off of a week where the results were in or favor, I think just trying to get back to why we play this game to have fun competing," said head coach Robbie Britt. 
 
So, in practice, they split up into teams to keep the competitive juices flowing by scrimmaging each other and putting a free ice cream bar up for grabs for the winning team, giving each side a goal to play for. 
 
During last weekend's sweep, it seemed that Charleston was able to get everything working for them. On the mound, they received some great starts from senior Austin Henrich and junior Logan Campbell. 
 
Henrich, in the opening game of the series between UC and UPJ, itched seven complete innings while allowing only three hits, no free passes, gave up two earned runs and struck out seven Mountain Cats in the process. UC would go on to take the win over UPJ 3-2. 
 
In game two, Campbell continued his hot streak as he threw 5.0 innings, gave up only three hits, allowed only one run, one walk and struck out eight batters to cap it off. This allowed UC to go on to take the win 17-1.
 
Not only was the pitching for the Golden Eagles good, but the offense was working as well. 
 
Head coach Robbie Britt explained that he thought the way the boys played last weekend was exactly how he wanted his offense to be operating moving forward. UC on the weekend had 22 hits, 25 runs, 22 RBI's, 14 BB, 10 stolen bases and struck out only 21 times. 
 
The bats seemed to be working and the runners were moving on the base paths. The Golden Eagles stole a lot of bases, played a lot of small ball and kept the opposing team guessing. This resulted in a lot of runs being scored for UC. 
 
One of the main contributing factors for UC's offense this past weekend was sophomore infielder Braxton Boddorf. He supplied his team with an unbelievable amount of production hitting in the nine-hole. 
 
Boddorf was the hero in game one of the series as he went 2-3 on the day, with his final hit being the most important of the game. He stepped into the box in the bottom of the seventh in a seven-inning ballgame with a runner on first and an 0-2 count. He proceeded to deposit his first career home run over the right-field fence to win the game for UC in walk-off fashion taking the game 3-2. 
 
In the rest of the series, Boddorf continued to produce. He would finish the series going 6-10 (.600), tallied five RBI's, a double, one home run, and a stolen base. He was a key factor for his team in the series sweep.
 
Charleston will look for more production on the mound from Henrich and Campbell while hoping to find the continued success at the plate from Boddorf heading into this series. 
 
This matchup between UC and Shippensburg will be the first meeting on the diamond between the two schools. Although they are in the same region, these two teams have never had the opportunity to square off with one another. 
 
This week is also spring break for Charleston. Classes have not been in session but that doesn't mean that the boys have stopped getting after it on and off the field. 
 
The team has used the break to do a few things during this time. One of them is catching up on schoolwork. Being in season, it can be tough to balance both academic work and performing on the field, so having a small break to be able to catch up on assignments is huge. 
 
UC has also been out on the practice field getting prepared to take on Shippensburg throughout the break. But what has been so special about this week is that  the boys were able to get out into the community to do some community service. 
 
The team traveled out to Chamberlain Elementary, Mary Ingles Elementary, Midland Trail Elementary and DuPont Middle School to service the community. The players were outside helping clean up some baseball fields, they were also in classrooms reading to the students, helping them with some homework, and even singing songs with some of the classes. 
 
"It is something that can get us back to being grounded in who we need to be as ballplayers. It is definitely a reminder that we are very privileged to play to game and to not take it for granted," said Britt. 
 
Not taking the game for granted seems to be the theme of the week for the Golden Eagles. It is a shared mindset throughout the program and is something that constantly needs to be reiterated. This week, community service was the outlet to help bring some perspective back to the program that there is more to life than just baseball, and that using their platform to help the community can be just as important as what they do on the field. 
 
With the Shippensburg series on the horizon, the focus of the week on the field was to continue to play hard while focusing on their process. 
 
One way that the program puts this idea into terminology is to "beat the ball", meaning to focus on the task at hand and control what you can control, not on what the other team is doing. By beating the ball, the team focuses on playing the game with a mindset of playing against the ball not the opposing players. There will always be a pitcher throwing different mixes of pitches, but the team looks to "beat the ball" by putting a good swing on a pitch in the zone. Related to that, if a ball is put into play, there will always be a defender there trying to make a play on it. Instead of worrying about the defenders, in terms of a ground ball on the infield, UC looks to "beat the ball" by reaching first base before the ball does. It all connects to playing hard on every pitch and controlling what is able to be controlled.  
 
"It is easier said than done obviously, but when we take the focus off of our opponents and we make it about being the best version of ourselves, I think we are a much more consistent team," said Britt. 
 
With the sweep of UPJ behind them, UC is looking forward to the Shippensburg series, and wants to continue to play their game through their process.
 
COVERAGE
This weekend's series will be played on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8. Saturday will be a double header starting at 1:00 p.m. with the second game starting 30 minutes after the conclusion of game one. Sunday's game is scheduled for a 12:00 p.m. first pitch. Live stats and the live broadcast of the games can be found at the following links:
 
Live Stats: https://ucgoldeneagles.com/sidearmstats/baseball/summary
Live Broadcast: https://mountaineast.tv/charleston/