Old Dominion (14-17, 4-8 Sun Belt) at William & Mary (12-18, 4-8 CAA)
Game Location – Plumeri Park (Williamsburg, Va.)
When – Tuesday, April 7 at 6 p.m.
Listen – Fox Sports Radio 1310 AM
Live Stats – Click Here
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NORFOLK, Va. – Old Dominion Baseball has its second meeting with William & Mary this season as the Monarchs travel to Williamsburg for a 6 p.m. game at Plumeri Park on Tuesday.
Ted Alexander will call the game on Fox Sports Radio 1310 AM, and live stats will also be available.
The Series
The first game in this season’s home-and-home series with W&M saw the Tribe come away with a 6-3 victory on Tuesday, March 24 at the Ellmer Family Baseball Complex. A Zach Leite 2-RBI double opened the scoring in the bottom of the first, and the Monarchs added another run in the third inning when Maverick Stallings walked, moved up to third base on a failed pickoff attempt, and scored on a Scotty Young single. However, the visitors pulled even with three runs in the fourth and took over the lead with a run in the sixth and two more in the eighth.
Tuesday’s game will mark the 147th meeting in the all-time series. Old Dominion is ahead, 89-57 and has won seven of the last 10 meetings with William & Mary.
Around the Horn
After dropping the Sun Belt series opener to No. 8 Southern Miss, 10-4 on Friday, the Monarchs (14-17, 4-8 Sun Belt) held on 10-8 on Saturday to even the series and secure their first ranked win of the season. In Sunday’s rubber match, a three-RBI Tyler Zedalis double capped off a six-run bottom of the seventh inning that put ODU ahead 7-6, but the Golden Eagles scored two runs late to win the series with an 8-7 final.
ODU has six starters hitting over .300 this season. Zach Leite leads the team with a .345 average and enters the week ranked 20th nationally with 43 RBIs and 24th with 1.39 RBIs per game. He’s also third in the Sun Belt with four sacrifice flies. Zedalis (.343) leads the Monarchs with six home runs, followed by Leite and Stallings (.304) with five each. Stallings has hit a team-best 10 doubles. Macaddin Dye is hitting .313, Will Johnson owns a .308 average, and TJ Aiken is batting .302 and ranks fourth in the conference with 24 walks. He’s also the team leader in stolen bases with 11 on 13 attempts.
The Silver & Blue are hitting .288 as a team, good for fifth in the Sun Belt, and own a .421 slugging percentage and a .387 on-base percentage. The Monarchs score 6.4 runs per game, but are allowing 7.6 runs. ODU’s two shutouts are the fourth-most in the league and the team is also fifth in the SBC with 15 sac flies.
Sophomore left-hander Cole Lanford (1-1, 6.48 ERA) will start the midweek game. Through one start and 10 appearances, the Raleigh, North Carolina native has allowed 16 runs, 12 of them earned, on 22 hits and 12 walks while striking out 18 in 16.2 innings pitched. Opposing hitters are batting .328 against him. ODU has a team ERA of 7.21 with a .321 batting average against Monarch pitching.
The win over Southern Miss helped the Monarchs move up to 152nd in the latest RPI rankings.
Scouting William & Mary
The Tribe (12-18, 4-8 CAA) is coming off an 0-4 week as W&M fell 10-3 to VMI last Tuesday and was swept by CAA foe Campbell, 5-2, 12-2, and 8-6 over the weekend.
Jamie Laskofski and Witt Scafidi are both hitting .354 to pace the W&M offense. Laskofski, a sophomore infielder from Burke, Virginia, is the CAA leader in runs (34), triples (3), and slugging percentage (.611). He’s also second in the conference with 1.13 runs per game and fifth with 0.1 triples per game. Laskofski owns a team-high 24 RBIs with six home runs, while Charlie Iriotakis (.294) has also gone yard six times. Trey Christman (.274) and Matthew Kosuda (.255) follow the pair with five long balls each, and Chase Echer (.237) is 18th in the country with 0.68 steals per game and 21st with 19 stolen bases on as many attempts.
W&M has been outscored by an average of 2.1 runs, allowing 7.8 runs per game while plating 5.7. The Tribe is batting .250 as a team with a .394 slugging percentage and a .343 on-base percentage. William & Mary is currently sixth in all of Division I with 93 steals and ranks seventh with 3.1 steals per game. The team is also 19th in hit batters (63), first in the CAA in triples (9) and triples per game (0.3), second in its conference in double plays (25) and double plays per game (0.83), and third in the league in home runs (29) and home runs per game (0.97).
Right-hander Zach Boyd (1-2, 6.31 ERA) will get the start for W&M. The sophomore from Richmond, Virginia has been tagged for 18 runs on 27 hits and 12 walks through eight starts and nine appearances. He has recorded 21 strikeoutsover 25.2 innings with opposing batters hitting .273. The Tribe has a combined ERA of 7.70 and opponents are batting .271 against them.
W&M is 179th in the latest RPI rankings and is led by second-year head coach Ron McCoy.
Up Next
Old Dominion heads to Huntington, West Virginia this weekend for a Sun Belt series at Marshall. The Monarchs and Herd will play at 6 p.m. on Friday, at 5 p.m. on Saturday, and at 1 p.m. on Sunday.