Baseball Opens Up 2012 With Three Games At #18 UCF

March 8, 2012

AMHERST, Mass. - The UMass baseball team will begin its 2012 season this weekend with a tough test as the squad travels to Orlando, Fla., for a three-game series against No. 18-ranked UCF. The Knights are currently 10-4 on the year entering game one with the Minutemen, which is slated for 6:30 p.m. on Friday night.

Weekend Pitching Matchups

Game 1: RHP Glen Misho vs. RHP Ben Lively (2-0, 2.25 ERA)

Game 2: RHP Dennis Torres vs. LHP Eric Skoglund (2-0, 1.80 ERA)

Game 3: RHP Joe Popielarczyk vs. LHP Brian Adkins (1-0, 6.38 ERA)

Scouting UCF

UCF enters the weekend series with a record of 10-4 on the year, ranked No. 18 in the latest Baseball America poll. The Knights have played all but two of their 14 contests at home thus far in 2011, posting a record of 9-3 at Jay Bergman Field.

Coming off a pair of losses to Florida State (7-6 and 1-0), the Knights swept Siena in a three-game set last weekend.

Chris Taladay paces UCF with a .404 average on the year with 23 hits in 57 at bats. D.J. Hicks has five of the team's eight home runs and has driven in 24, while boasting a .706 slugging percentage and a .373 (19-for-51) average. Three more Knights are hitting over .300 on the year as the teams is collectively batting .309 to an opponents' average of .230.

Eric Skoglund paces the UCF pitching staff with a 2-0 record and a 1.80 earned run average through 15.0 innings with 16 strikeouts and opponents hitting just .185 against him. The Knights have a team ERA of 3.53 and have logged 123 strikeouts in 125 innings.

UMass is 3-4 all-time against UCF, having last faced the Knights in 2007. Two of the victories came in the 1996 NCAA East Regional.

Approaching a Milestone

Head coach Mike Stone enters his 25th season at the helm for UMass three wins shy of his 600th as coach of the Minutemen. He currently holds a record of 597-525-3 (.532).

In his career, which spans 30 seasons (five at Vermont), Stone is 651-615-5 (.514).

Conley A Mainstay For Minutemen Behind The Plate

Senior catcher Tom Conley enters his fourth year as a starter behind the plate for the Minutemen having played a possible 134 out of 146 games over his previous three seasons at UMass, logging 128 starts.

Conley is the top returning hitter from the 2011 squad, posting a .299 average with 44 runs scored, 30 RBI, seven doubles, one triple and two home runs last season. Primarily hitting fifth in the lineup as a junior, Conley struck out just 12 times in 147 at bats. He ranked second on the team in multi-hit games (13), third on the team in multi-RBI games (8), third in batting average and fourth in RBI.

Defensively, Conley threw out 24 runners on the base paths, which ranked him third in the Atlantic 10, while picking off two, as well.

A .297 career hitter, Conley enters his senior campaign with 130 hits, 74 runs scored and 66 RBI. He was an Atlantic 10 All-Rookie selection in 2009.

Active Streaks Entering 2012

Several returning Minutemen ended the 2011 season with active hitting streaks: Anthony Serino (6), Dylan Begin (2), Tom Conley (2), Rob McLam (1), Nick Sanford (1) and Alex Tuneski (1).

Those with active reached base streaks carrying over from 2011 include: Anthony Serino (6), Rob McLam (5), Tom Conley (2), Dylan Begin (2), Nik Campero (1), Nick Sanford (1) and Alex Tuneski (1).

Core Of Sophomores

Among UMass' returnees from the 2011 squad are 10 sophomores, including seven position players who saw time in the field as freshman. Those seven collectively played in 171 games with 109 starts and had a total of 407 at bats. Three--Dylan Begin, Josh Messier and Nick Sanford--started 20 or more games. Begin went 26-for-100 with 13 RBI and 12 runs scored with five doubles and one home run in 29 games with 26 starts.

Also not included in those 10 are two more players who missed time in 2011 due to injury. Redshirt sophomore Ryan Cusick returns looking to build off a freshman campaign in 2010 in which he started 34 games and hit .297 (44-for-148) with 34 runs scored en-route to an Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team selection. Redshirt freshman Adam Picard was off to a promising start before suffering a season-ending injury in 2011, logging six hits, with three doubles, in 21 at bats over seven games.

On The Mound

Reaping the benefits of having a young pitching staff in 2011, UMass returns 285 of its 411.1 innings from last season, including seven who started on the mound.

Among those back for 2011 is senior Glen Misho. Misho led the Minutemen in wins (5), starts (12), innings pitched (82.2) and strikeouts (42).

Junior Dennis Torres started eight games in his first collegiate season, throwing a total of 46.0 innings and striking out 31. He is back in the starting rotation this year.

UMass' bullpen ace is senior Leif Sorenson who led the Minutemen with a 3.08 earned run average last season. Sorenson, who came to UMass as a sophomore after Vermont discontinued its baseball program, is the program's all-time saves leader (11) and holds the No. 4 and No. 5 marks on the single season saves list at UMass, including a career-best six in a team-high 21 appearances in 2011.

The Minutemen have also bolstered the pitching staff with the addition of six freshman arms.

Up Next

UMass will travel to Hartford for a 3 p.m. contest on Tuesday, Mar. 11.

Scoreboard

Players Mentioned

Dylan Begin

Nick Sanford

Scoreboard

University of Massachusets Athletics