Wheeling, W. Va. - After traveling to Florida and North Carolina on their last two trips, the Wheeling University Baseball team (1-5, 0-0) takes their shortest trip of the season to Washington, PA. They open a three-game series with California University of Pennsylvania (CAL-U) on Wednesday at Wild Things Park with first pitch scheduled for 1 PM. The game was originally slated for Friday, but with inclement weather moving into the area, the teams moved the opener.
After a week off, the Cardinals are looking for a bounce back from their last series, when they dropped two out of three games to Chowan on February 12th and 13th. The offense scored a combined 20 runs in the three games in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, but it wasn't enough as Chowan scored 30 runs in that same three-game span. In their first game north of the North Carolina border, Wheeling is looking to get back in the win column as they open Atlantic Regional Play.
Despite going 1-2 in North Carolina, Wheeling's Jacob Murray was honored for his efforts being named the Mountain East Conference's (MEC) Player of the Week. After a strong junior campaign, Murray picked up where he left odd against Chowan hitting .416 with a home run and two RBI during the three-game set. His biggest performance came in game two of Saturday's doubleheader when Murray went 3-5 with a home run and both of his RBI. He is one of three Cardinals with a home run in the early going and he is tied for third on the team with five hits.
Fellow junior Lucas Rawlins would lead Wheeling in RBI during the weekend, with four, and hit .300 at the plate (3-10). He drove in two in game three of the series and had one RBI in each of the other two games in North Carolina. He is now hitting .238 on the season with five RBI in his first six games. J.R. Heavilin rounded out the strong weekend for the Cardinals by driving in two runs and going 3-10 (.300) at the dish. Both of his RBI's were in the team's game two win when he drove an RBI double to tie the game at 2-2 in the third inning.
Head Coach Ryan Lewicki made his team's non-conference schedule a tough one as they prepare for MEC play, which begins on March 19th. The goal was to make the NCAA Tournament at the beginning of the season and as regional play starts, they can make a push for that goal now. The Cardinals ranked as high as #9 in the regional rankings last season and will have to contend with the team that currently ranks 7th in the region in Cal-U. These are the games Wheeling needs to win in order to climb the regional rankings and they enter Wednesday's opener with their sights set on doing just that.
The Matchup
The Cardinals and Vulcans are set to meet for the 24th time on Wednesday with Wheeling going 3-20 in the first 23 games between the two teams. However, two of those three wins have come in the last four meetings between the two teams, with Wheeling going 2-3 over their last five matchups. They are averaging 3.4 runs per game in those five matchups and are undefeated when they score 6+ runs against the Vulcans.
Their last three-game series came last season when the Vulcans took two out of three from the Cardinals. After dropping the first two games of the series, Wheeling came back with a 9-8 win in game three. Blake Vandiver had a big game in that one going 3-3 with two RBI, and former Cardinal Bryen Kimbrough added a 2-5 day with two RBI.
The Details
First pitch for game one of the three-game series is scheduled for Wednesday, February 23rd, at 1 PM at Wild Things Park. You can follow along with Live Stats throughout the game by clicking HERE.
