Issue date: 3/13/09 Section: Sports

Freshman pitcher Danny DeLong pitches the ball during baseball practice on Wednesday, March 11 in the Lantz Fieldhouse. (Karolina Strack/The Daily Eastern News)

With Ohio Valley Conference play right around the corner, the Eastern baseball team hits the road this weekend for three games head coach Jim Schmitz hopes will prepare his team to make a run at a conference title.

The Panthers travel to Tampa, Fla., today to compete in the USF Bulls Classic. They will face the host Bulls (7-5) at 7 p.m. today, Bethune-Cookman (8-7) at 2 p.m. Saturday and No. 15 Oklahoma (15-3) at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Additionally, Eastern (6-4) will take on Indiana and Bradley in Winter Haven, Fla., next week to complete their spring break trip. They will face the Hoosiers at 9 a.m. next Tuesday and the Braves at 8:30 a.m. the following day.

Schmitz said he thinks these five games will be a good tune-up for his team as they will begin conference play next weekend against Morehead State in Morehead, Ky.

"The trip ahead is very important," he said. "It's five games against five really good teams. It's a chance for us to tweak whatever we have to tweak to get ready for conference play. Hopefully, we can go 4-1 or 3-2 and go into Morehead feeling good about ourselves."

The Panthers are coming off a tough, 10-9 loss to Indiana State Tuesday in Terre Haute, Ind. Eastern blew an early four-run lead before ultimately allowing the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth.

Senior center fielder Brett Nommensen, who hit two home runs and drove in three in the loss, is excited for the trip and the chance to play against big-name programs.

"It's going to be really hard," said Nommensen, who is hitting .405 with a team-high four home runs. "These are teams you can't make mistakes against, like we learned against Louisville."

Eastern's usual three pitchers will throw during the weekend with sophomore Josh Mueller getting the start today against South Florida, junior Tyler Kehrer throwing against Bethune-Cookman, and sophomore Mike Recchia getting the nod against the Sooners.

South Florida will counter with sophomore right-hander Matt Stull. Despite his record of 1-0, Stull has struggled to an 8.10 ERA more than 10 innings pitched thus far on the season.

Bethune-Cookman will counter with senior right-hander Eric Thomas. Thomas is 1-2 with an 8.27 ERA, but has 16 strikeouts in 16 1/3 innings.

Sunday against the Sooners, Eastern will face junior right-hander Garrett Richards. Richards is 1-0 with a 6.91 ERA in 14 1/3 innings pitched. He has 16 strikeouts and nine walks.

Oklahoma has two players with five home runs already on the season, and has hit 22 as a team through 18 games.


Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.