Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Baseball to Face Towson and Penn State this Week
4/15/2013 8:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 15, 2013
LEWISBURG, Pa. - The Bison Baseball team will host a game at Depew Field for the first time in two weeks as they play host to Towson Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. Bucknell will follow that home game by returning to Penn State on Wednesday at 7 p.m. It will be the second time in the last week that the Bison have traveled to Penn State as last Wednesday's game was rained out after just three-and-a-half innings.
Bucknell has been playing strong ball over the last week. The Bison have won six out of their last seven games and vaulted themselves into a tie for second place in the Patriot League standings. Bucknell (12-23, 7-5 PL) has won three out of four in each of its last two Patriot League series.
Nine of the Bison's final 12 regular-season games will be played at Depew Field, starting with Tuesday's contest against the Tigers. The Bucknell-Towson series dates back to 1980 as the Tigers hold a 27-13 all-time advantage over the Bison.
Towson is 19-17 (9-6 CAA) this season. The team is hitting .275 and owns a 4.14 ERA.
The Bison were scheduled to play at Penn State last Wednesday, but the game had to be cancelled due to extremely poor weather. The game this Wednesday was scheduled prior to the cancellation of the previous game with the Nittany Lions.
The Bucknell-Penn State series dates back to 1886. The Nittany Lions hold a 111-33 advantage in the series against the Bison. The last time Bucknell won a game against the Nittany Lions was in 1998 and they have lost 18 straight in the series. Five of the last seven games have been decided by two runs or fewer.
Penn State is hitting .249 as a team and has 4.95 ERA. It has a 7-24 record and is 0-9 in the Big Ten
Bucknell is hitting .241 as a team and has a 4.47 ERA. Over the last seven games the Bison are hitting .303 as a team and have a 2.84 ERA.
Over the course of the last seven games, Joe Ogren is hitting .450 with one home run and eight RBIs. Travis Clark is at .379 with two home runs and eight RBIs, while Carter Bumgardner is at .393 with one home run and seven RBIs. Clark has hit in eight straight games and reached base in 13 in a row, while Bumgardner owns a five-game hitting streak.
Bumgardner leads the team in hitting this season with a .330 average, while Anthony Gingerelli (.314) and Corey Furman (.308) are also over .300.
Three-fourths of Bucknell's weekend pitching rotation have ERAs under 4.00 as Dan Goldstein (3.40), Andrew Andreychik (3.63) and Bryson Hough (3.64) rank 1-2-3 on the team and are in the top 10 in the Patriot League. Goldstein has thrown three straight complete games and has allowed just 45 hits in 55.2 innings. After walking 24 hitters in his first 29.2 innings this year he has issued just four walks over his last 26.0 innings.
Following this week's games against Towson and Penn State, Bucknell will host Army (April 20-21) and Lafayette (April 27-28) in its final two Patriot League series. The top four teams in the six-team Patriot League qualify for the conference's postseason tournament.
