Baseball struggling as SoCon reaches midpoint

Coming off a win on Wednesday night April 7, 2010 against the Davidson Wildcats 7-1, the Spartans started an eight game stretch on the road.  UNCG began their stretch in Samford this past weekend. The Spartans fell to the Bulldogs in all three games, dropping their record to 14-18 and 2-12 in the SoCon.
Thus far, conference play has been tough for the Spartans as they have gone 0-3 in every conference series they have undergone: College of Charleston, Georgia Southern, Elon, and the latest, Samford.  The two wins comes from two at-home wins against Davidson.  They have had spectacular out of conference play, especially in the March 24 game against Carolina where the Spartans fell to the Tar Heels 4-3 after leading them for the majority of play 3-0 in front of a record crowd.  The team will be tested on the road, as Samford went into the series with a 10-1 conference record.

Though coming off a loss to Troy 11-9, Samford holds the Southern Conference athlete of the week, Wayne Miller, who has been spectacular at the plate for the Bulldogs.
As the Spartans travel on, they hike up to Boone for their series against number seven in the conference Appalachian State.  The Mountaineers (21-7-1; 6-7-1 SoCon) will be coming off a three game series against Davidson and a two game swap against High Point University.

UNCG will also contest with two ACC teams in their road stretch.  The Spartans will clash with both the Duke Blue Devils, April 14, and Wake Forest Demon Deacons, April 21.  These two ACC teams, as of now, are both last in the ACC.

Harry Slade holds the leading batting average for UNCG at .402.  Corey Overholtzer is still on the prowl for the record for most triples both at the university and in the Southern Conference.  Overholtzer was the Southern conference player of the week coming off of the Spartans sweep over Cleveland State to open the season.  Other big hitters such as Kris Richards, Eric Brindle, and Ray Quinones also look to continue to step up when at the plate.

In the latest poll from Boyd’s World, the SoCon was ranked eighth out of thirty-two conferences in the NCAA.  College of Charleston and The Citadel were also most recently ranked in the top 30. Playing and competing in one of the top ten conferences in the nation can obviously be a difficult and intimidating task.  All teams of which are vying heavily for the win at the Southern Conference Tournament in Charleston, SC and a chance to play in the NCAA College World Series.

UNCG was projected in preseason polls by both coaches and the media to finish ninth in the Southern Conference out of the eleven teams, but there is room for the Spartans to prove that they are able to compete at such a high level.  With sixteen conference games yet to play, there is still a lot of opportunity for surprise. 

After returning from their road trip the Spartans will host Wofford from April 23 to 25 before hosting Davidson April 28.