March 5, 2004

The Patriots are off to one of their best starts in recent years, winning their first five games this year and six of seven contests overall... The Patriots were champions at a weekend tournament at College of Charleston and won two of three games last weekend at Columbia, S.C.... The lone defeat this year came at the hands of South Carolina, currently ranked fifth in the nation in both Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball's polls... George Mason has shown that it can win with pitching and hitting. The Patriots scored 11 or more runs in their first three games and have kept opponents to two or fewer runs on three occasions... The Patriots defeated Virginia Tech, 4-2, on Thursday afternoon. George Mason is now 12-15-1 all-time versus the Hokies. Stacen Gant went eight innings in picking up his third win of the year. He leads the team in wins (3), ERA (2.05) and strikeouts (16)... The Patriots are hitting .284 on the year and have won by an average margin of 8.3-3.7... Jeff Palumbo leads the Patriots with a .387 batting average. He was the Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Week for the week ending Feb. 22... Jake Glanzmann gets the start in the first game of this weekend's series. He is the reigning CAA Pitcher of the Week. He is 1-0 with a 2.45 earned-run average... The George Mason starting pitchers have a staff ERA of 2.74 and have struck out 28 batters in 46 innings while walking just 13 batters... Opposing hitters are batting .243 against the Patriots... Canisius has played just three games this season, getting swept at Bethune-Cookman, 15-0, 10-6 and 12-5... The Golden Griffins have a staff ERA of 13.50 and are hitting just .232. Only three players are hitting better than .273 with Gabe Baida batting .556 in just nine at-bats. No player has more than two RBI... Teams are batting .407 against Canisius pitching... The Golden Griffins have a starting pitching ERA of 19.64.