Wednesday, April 17
Annapolis, Md.
5 p.m.
Bucknell University
at
Navy
Photo by: Lianne Garrahan
Bison, Midshipmen Play Season Series Rubber Match Wednesday in Annapolis
4/15/2024 5:57:00 PM | Baseball
Bucknell (15-20, 7-11 PL) at Navy (21-15, 11-7 PL)
When:Â Wednesday, April 17, 5 p.m.
Where:Â Terwilliger Brothers Field at Max Bishop Stadium, Annapolis, Md.
Watch:Â ESPN+
Live Stats:Â NavySports.com
Bucknell at a Glance
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When:Â Wednesday, April 17, 5 p.m.
Where:Â Terwilliger Brothers Field at Max Bishop Stadium, Annapolis, Md.
Watch:Â ESPN+
Live Stats:Â NavySports.com
Bucknell at a Glance
- Bucknell and Navy square off Wednesday in the rubber match of their five-game season series. The two teams split a four-game set at Depew Field to start Patriot League play on March 15-17.
- The Bison and Midshipmen have both played 18 of their 25 Patriot League contests, while the other four teams in the league have only played 14. Navy at 11-7 is level with 9-5 Army at the top of the standings, while Bucknell at 7-11 is in fifth place, two games behind fourth-place Lehigh (6-8). The top four teams qualify for the Patriot League Tournament.
- Bucknell took two of three from Lehigh at home this past weekend and has won three of its last four and five of its last eight games.
- The Bison had been struggling offensively before the bats broke out in Sunday's 18-8 win over Lehigh. Bucknell had hit just .198 as a team over its previous five games before exploding for a season-high 18 runs on 16 hits in the seven-inning run-rule victory. Nine of those 16 hits went for extra bases, including seven doubles and a pair of long home runs from Jacob Corson (427') and Chris Morabito (417').
- Sophomore DH Michael Trommer collected a career-high four hits, three of them doubles, in Sunday's win over Lehigh. Trommer now has nine multi-hit games in his last 19 games, and he has boosted his season average to .388. That is the second-best mark in the Patriot League, trailing only Army's Chris Barr (.412). Trommer also ranks fourth in the league in on-base percentage (.478), 10th in slugging percentage (.520), and seventh in OPS (.998).
- Junior 3B Sean Keys will play in his 100th career game on Wednesday at Navy. He had been leading the league in hitting for most of the year but has dropped to fourth at .379 as he is fighting an 8-for-28 (.286) "slump" over his last eight games. Keys, who has 10 home runs and 37 RBIs, still leads the PL in slugging (.766), OPS (1.272), and doubles (14). He also ranks second in OBP (.506), homers, and hits (47), and fifth in RBIs.
- Keys has reached base safely in all but three games this season, and he has a hit in all but five. That includes a pair of four-hit games and a cycle – the fourth in team history – on March 26 at Mount St. Mary's.
- Keys was listed as the No. 7 third baseman in D1Baseball's preseason positional rankings, and he is holding steady at No. 8 in the site's midseason rankings, which were released last week. Georgia star Charlie Condon, who many analysts project to be the No. 1 pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, sits atop DIBaseball's list of top-50 third basemen. Keys is the only player in the top 12 not from a team in the SEC or ACC. Ranked ahead of him are Condon, Tennessee's Billy Amick, Virginia Tech's Carson DeMartini, LSU's Tommy White, Alabama's Gage Miller, Florida State's Cam Smith, and Clemson's Blake Wright.
- Keys now has 24 home runs and 104 RBIs in 99 career games. The 24 homers are tied for third-most in team history alongside Jason Buursma. Next on the list is Andrew Brouse with 30. Keys is the 13th player in team history with 100 RBIs, and his .688 career slugging percentage would be a school record. Corson hit the 100-RBI mark earlier in the season, and Grant Voytovich needs five more to hit the milestone.Â
- Junior 2B Billy Kender has four multi-hit games in his last eight since returning from a foot injury. Kender moved into the leadoff spot in the lineup after the injury, and his season average now sits at .302.
- Corson broke out of a 1-for-22 slide with a 3-for-4 day against Lehigh on Sunday. He drove in four runs, scored three, and belted his sixth home run of the season.
- Bucknell pitchers have compiled a 3.52 ERA and limited opponents to a .220 batting average over the last six games, and in that span, the bullpen has allowed only one earned run in 17.2 innings.
- No. 1 starter Tyler O'Neill has posted complete-game wins over Lafayette and Lehigh in his last two starts, and he has now gone at least six innings while allowing three runs or fewer in each of his last five outings. O'Neill struck out seven in seven innings of work against both the Leopards and Mountain Hawks, and he now has 50 Ks in 48.1 innings pitched this season.
- Head coach Scott Heather is in his 12th season at the helm, tying him with Bill Lane (1946-57) as the third-longest tenured coach in program history. Heather's 216 career wins are second-most in team history, trailing only Hall-of-Famer Gene Depew (591).
- In each of the past two seasons, Bucknell has fallen to Army in the best 2-of-3 Patriot League championship series. The Black Knights have won each of the last five titles. Army and Bucknell were picked 1-2 in this year's preseason poll.  Â
- Navy is 21-15 on the season under first-year head coach Chuck Ristano, who took over the program after 13 seasons as the pitching coach at Notre Dame and the 2023 season in the same role at Florida State.
- Navy is 12-5 at home this season, including a 6-1 mark against Patriot League foes at Max Bishop Stadium.
- The Midshipmen dropped two of three at Holy Cross this past weekend, falling 7-1 and 15-5 in Saturday's doubleheader before bouncing back with a 7-2 win in Sunday's finale. Tyler Grenn and Brady Bendik have been two of the Patriot League's top starters all season, but both had tough outings in Worcester. Nolan Jorgenson and Landon Kruer shut down the Crusaders on Sunday, however.
- Navy was picked third in the Patriot League preseason poll, one spot behind Bucknell. Pitchers Kruer and Matthew Shirah along with shortstop Eduardo Diaz were all named to the Preseason All-Patriot League Team.
- Navy's top bats are Brock Murtha (.339) and Logan Keller (.322), who both rank in the top 10 in the Patriot League batting race. Keller went 5-for-9 in the final two games of the Holy Cross series, and he leads the team with four home runs on the season.
- As a team, Navy leads the Patriot League with a .278 team batting average. The Mids have hit only 13 home runs and have the fewest extra-base hits in the league, but their 71 stolen bases are by far the most in the PL. Zane Raba (24) and Murtha (17) rank first and third in the league in thefts.
- Navy has also been the league's steadiest defensive team with a PL-low 26 errors and a strong .978 fielding percentage.
- Navy's 6.12 team ERA is third-best in the Patriot League, trailing Army and Lehigh.Â
- Bucknell and Navy have met 182 times in a series that dates back to 1904. The Midshipmen hold a 96-85-1 lead in the series. The Bison have won 14 of the last 19 on the heels of a Navy 10-game winning streak.
- Bucknell is 18-10 against Navy in Patriot League Tournament action, including 2-0 last season.
- These two teams met seven times in 2023. Navy won the first two before the Bison won the next five. Bucknell came back to edge Navy 3-2 in the regular-season series, which served as the tiebreaker as the two teams tied for second place with 14-11 Patriot League records. That allowed the Bison to host the PL Tournament semifinal series, which they ended up winning on the Billy Kender walk-off.
- Navy will be glad not to have to face LHP Ben Magovern, who is currently out with an injury, and shortstop Anthony Sherwin, who signed with the Astros after last season. Magovern went 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in two starts against the Midshipmen last season, including a win in Bucknell's season series-clinching win at Depew Field. Sherwin hit .456 (31-68) in his three-year career against Navy, including two four-hit games and two games with at least five RBIs.
- Bucknell and Navy alternated wins and losses in the four-game series in Lewisburg last month. The Midshipmen won the opener 2-0 when Grenn and Kruer combined on a two-hit shutout, spoiling Tyler O'Neill's strong start for the Bison.
- Bucknell won game two 5-2 behind home runs from Jacob Corson and Sean Keys and a strong six-inning outing from freshman Jack O'Malley (0 ER, 5 H, 9 K, 0 BB).
- Andrew Manning's three-run, first-inning homer sent Navy on its way to an 8-2 rout in game three of the series.Â
- Bucknell returned the favor in the series finale, scoring seven times in the bottom of the first inning on the way to an 8-2 win. Jonathan Adelmann, Graeme Carroll, and Nick Mulvey combined to allow only one earned run over nine innings, and the Bison knocked out Navy starter Jackson Beattie in the first inning.
- Bucknell outscored Navy 15-14 and out-hit them .237-.235 in the four games. Michael Trommer (5-13), Keys (4-13), and Billy Kender (4-13) were Bucknell's top hitters in the series, with Keys driving in a team-high four runs.
- Only seven of the 14 runs allowed by Bison pitchers were earned, giving the team a 1.97 ERA in the series.
- Victor Izquierdo (4-12), Keller (4-13), and Murtha (4-13) were Navy's top hitters last month in Lewisburg.Â
- Bucknell hits the road this weekend to face five-time defending PL champion Army in a three-game series at Doubleday Field. The Black Knights swept a doubleheader from the Bison, 9-1 and 21-5, on March 25 in Lewisburg.
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