March 8, 2004
The George Mason baseball team begins a five-game, six-day road trip on Tuesday by taking on one of the toughest teams they will face all year, nationally-ranked North Carolina State University. The Patriots will face the Wolfpack in a two-game series beginning Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Raleigh, N.C.
The Wolfpack opened the season 10-0 before dropping the final two games of a three-game series at San Diego State on Saturday and Sunday. The Wolfpack returned home on Monday morning to find that they had been dropped from Baseball America's top 25. N.C. State remained ranked in the Collegiate Baseball poll, standing at No. 23.
The Wolfpack are the second top-25 team the Patriots will face this year. They suffered their only loss of the season on Feb. 29 when they were defeated by South Carolina, 5-0. The Gamecocks are ranked third in the nation by Baseball America.
The Wolfpack faced some easy opponents in the opening weeks, beating Campbell, sweeping a three-game set from Elon, topping The Citadel and taking two games each from College of Charleston and Le Moyne. San Diego State posed a different challenge last weekend.
North Carolina State has gotten things done behind exceptional pitching. Michael Rogers is 3-0 with a 0.96 ERA, Vern Sterry is 2-0 with a 2.95 ERA and Nate Cretarolo is 1-0 with a 3.46 ERA. The Patriots won't have to face any of them, however. Instead, they will take on Phillip Davidson in the opener. Davidson has made one start this year, earning the win while pitching five and one-third innings. He surrendered two earned runs on five hits with no walks and five strikeouts. On Wednesday, George Mason will see Derek McKee, who has made just one appearance this year. He pitched two innings allowing one hit, no runs, no walks and striking out four.
The Patriots will send their most consistent pitcher to the mound on Tuesday in Stacen Gant. The junior righthander is 3-0 this year with a 2.05 ERA. He has pitched 22 innings and allowed just 20 base runners. He gave up 14 hits, five walks and hit one batter. He has struck out 16. On Wednesday, sophomore righthander Jason Mills will make his first start of the year. He has pitched just once this year, allowing one run in one inning on three hits with two strikeouts and no walks. As a team, the Patriots have a 2.86 ERA and a 2.39 starter's ERA.
Gant and Mills will have to be careful when facing Matt Camp, David Hicks and John St. Julien. The trip is all batting better than .380 on the season. Camp leads the Wolfpack with a .426 average and he has scored 14 runs. Hicks is hitting .409 and has four home runs and 11 RBI. St. Julien is batting .383 with 13 RBI and 12 runs. As a team, the Wolfpack are batting .288 and have nine home runs and 83 runs scored. They have a .394 on-base percentage.
The Patriots have done more than their fair sharing of big hitting this year. They are batting .331 with 18 home runs and 101 runs scored with a .418 on-base percentage.
