FAIRFAX, Va. – After a mid-week trip to Greenville, N.C., the George Mason baseball team returns to Spuhler Field to play a weekend series against the Siena College Saints. The first pitch for game one of Saturday's doubleheader is scheduled for 12 p.m. as the Patriots get set to play 11 of their next 13 games at home.
Mason (2-10) returns home after dropping two games at No. 16 East Carolina by final scores of 8-1 and 6-0. The Patriots have been held to two runs or fewer in six straight and have been kept off the scoreboard in three of those games.
"We need to win some games, it's really not any more complicated than that," head coach Bill Brown said while his team wrapped up practice at Spuhler Field. "We've had opportunities to win some of the games that we haven't, but we have to figure out a way to finish these games."
Sophomore Brady Acker leads the Patriots at the plate and provided the only extra base hit against the Pirates in the last series. He's batting .326 (15-for-46) with two home runs and eight RBI in 12 games, with four of his 15 hits for extra bases. Freshman Greg Popatak II is hitting .290 (9-for-31) with three RBI in 10 games and sophomore Timothy Turner is third on the team in average, batting .267 (4-for-15) with a homer and four RBI in eight games.
The Patriots have two wins at home and both by a single run. Mason slipped past Rutgers 6-5 on Feb. 27 and edged Bryant 3-2 on March 5th.
SCOUTING REPORT
The Saints (0-10) are members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. They have played every one of their games on the road and are still searching for that elusive first win of the 2016 campaign. Siena has been swept in series at Central Florida, Stetson, The Citadel and Morehead State. After the three-game stop at Mason, Siena will travel to take on Indiana State. The Saints will play a total of 16 games in a row on the road to start the year.
The last time out, the Saints dropped both ends of a doubleheader at Morehead State, losing game one 24-7 and falling in the nightcap 11-4.
In the first 10 games of the season opponents are batting .370 against the Siena pitching staff. The Saints have been outscored by a combined total of 112-39 and have allowed at least 10 runs in seven of their 10 games.
Junior Dan Swain is batting .314 with three home runs and eight RBI. Sophomore Jordan Bishop is hitting .286 with three RBI and sophomore Joe Drpich is batting .270 with a homer and seven runs batted in.
PROBABLE STARTERS
Three pitchers for Mason are scheduled to each make their fourth starts of the season this weekend. In game one of the doubleheader junior Tyler Zombro (0-3, 6.89) is slated to take the hill. In the second game, sophomore left-hander Joe Williams (0-1, 5.29) gets the ball. On Sunday, the Patriots will turn to freshman Bryce Nightengale (0-2, 6.92).
The first pitch for the first game on Saturday, March 12 is scheduled for 12 p.m. The series wraps up on Sunday, March 13 with the first pitch slated for 1 p.m.
