Wildcats on deck for surging Pirates

The baseball team travels to Plymouth Meeting, Pa this week­end to take on the Villanova Wild­cats as part of a three game series.

The Pirates have won 11 of their last 14. The Hall took two of three from the Hoyas last week­end due to strong efforts from se­nior pitcher Jon Prosinski, senior shortstop Giuseppe Papaccio and junior centerfielder Zack Granite.

"We just have to keep playing like we have," Head coach Mike Sheppard said. "We have to keep showing up and playing consis­tent baseball. We've been pitch­ing really well, we've been hit­ting really well. We just have to keep playing one game at a time."

Papaccio comes into the se­ries hitting a team best .351 at the plate with 27 RBIs and 76 total bases. He went 6-12 with seven runs batted in throughout the Georgetown series.

Granite has also been swing­ing a hot bat for the Pirates lead­ing the everyday starters with a .436 on base percentage and bat­ting .347.

The Pirates followed up the Georgetown series with a 10-1 victory over Monmouth Univer­sity on Tuesday behind seven strong innings from junior Josh Prevost. Prevost only surrendered one run on nine hits and struck out two.

The next day the Pirates crushed Lehigh 17-7 behind the bat of sophomore first baseman Sal Annunziata who went 3-5 with a two RBI triple.

Pitchers Prosinski and senior Greg Terhune, who will most likely pitch in the upcoming se­ries, will have to keep their eyes out for Wildcats freshman first baseman Max Beermann. He cur­rently sits atop Villanova's home­run list with four on the season.

The Pirates, currently on their best winning streak this season, are looking to continue to climb in the Big East standings. They currently sit at fourth in the con­ference at 7-5 in Big East play and 22-16 overall.

With the series versus George­town behind them, the Pirates will look move up even higher against the Wildcats.

"All conference games are im­portant," Sheppard said. "From first place to sixth place I think there is only a two or three game spread, so one weekend can move teams up and down. So, every weekend is going to be impor­tant."

Villanova comes into the se­ries dead last in the Big East at 2-10 in conference play and 10-29 overall. A couple of key wins versus the Hall could propel the Wildcats right back into the thick of things with the Big East Cham­pionship set to begin a month from now.

Game one of the series is slat­ed for 3:00 p.m. on Friday, with game two at 1:15 p.m. Saturday and the final game coming at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday.

David Heim can be reached at david.heim@student.shu.edu.