Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Baseball Series at Army Begins Friday
4/19/2012 8:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 19, 2012
LEWISBURG, Pa. - The Bucknell baseball team will head on the road for a Patriot League series for the first time this season when it plays a four-game set at Army on Friday and Saturday. The series was originally scheduled to be the traditional Saturday-Sunday, but the threat of heavy rains in the Hudson Valley caused the series to be moved up one day.
The Bison and Black Knights will square off in a 1 p.m. twinbill on Friday and a noon doubleheader on Saturday. All four games will be played at Army's Doubleday Field.
Bucknell enters the series with a 19-20 overall record and a 6-6 mark in Patriot League play. The Bison are in third place in the conference standings, behind only Army (12-0) and Holy Cross (8-4). They captured three out of four games last weekend against Lehigh and are coming off a tight 2-0 loss at Penn State on Wednesday.
Bucknell owns a .298 batting average as a team and senior Bob Donato leads the squad with a .387 batting average. Twenty-one of his team-high 55 hits have gone for extra bases. Rob Krentzman stands second on the team in hitting (.352) and enters the weekend on a team-best six-game hitting streak. He is hitting 10-for-23 (.435) during the streak.
David Duffett (.329), Travis Clark (.312) and Robb Scott (.307) are also hitting over .300 this season. Scott has been especially impressive since the team returned from its Spring Break trip to Florida in mid-March, hitting .357 over that span (23 games).
Dan Weigel (6-2, 3.17 ERA, 59.2 IP) continues to lead the pitching staff in wins and ERA. Russell Seidell (3.55), Bryson Hough (3.68) and Alex Cillo (3.72) also own ERAs under 4.00. That quartet of hurlers has combined for 13 of the squad's 19 victories and all seven saves.
Bucknell's team ERA has dipped to 4.99, the first time it has been under 5.00 since the opening day of the season back in February. The Bison have yielded just 18 earned runs over the last five games (40.0 IP) for a 4.05 ERA over that span.
Army enters the weekend undefeated in Patriot League play and as the only team to have locked up a postseason berth. The Black Knights are 29-9 overall and 14-2 at home. They are hitting .302 as a team and have a 3.42 ERA. Kevin McKague is their top hitter at .391 and his 0.79 ERA in 11.1 innings paces the squad. Chris Rowley is 8-0 and owns a 1.06 ERA in nine starts covering 59.2 innings.
Army leads the all-time series with Bucknell by a 57-42 margin. However, the Bison took three of four last year and have won five of the last seven meetings dating back to the 2010 Patriot League Tournament.
Bucknell will close out both its non-league and home schedule next Tuesday, April 24, when it hosts St. Bonaventure in a 2 p.m. doubleheader at Depew Field. The two teams had their annual meeting rained out last April.
