NEWS
Baseball Hosts George Mason in Final A-10 Series
The Wildcats hope to do a lot of celebrating during their final home series before next week’s A10 Tournament.
An Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season championship is within reach as the Davidson Wildcats enter the season’s final three-game series this week.
The first-place Wildcats, now 40-10 overall and 18-3 in A-10 play, will take on George Mason beginning at 4 p.m. Thursday, with afternoon contests also set for Friday and Saturday against the fifth-place Patriots.
Davidson enters with a two-game lead on second-place VCU, which will close the season with a series against Fordham. The Wildcats’ magic number is two — they need two wins, two VCU losses or a win and a VCU loss — to lock up the regular-season title and the top seed in next week’s A-10 tournament.
If necessary, Davidson also owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with VCU, having won two of three games against the Rams in April.
RARE AIR
Having already set the single-season program wins record, the Wildcats are also setting the bar high in league play. An outright regular-season conference title would be the first in program history.
The 1985 Davidson team finished first in the Southern Conference South Division, going 11-5 in league play, which was the second-best SoCon record that season. Wildcat teams were second in the SoCon in 1975 and 2014 and second in the Big South in 1992. Davidson’s top A-10 standings finish came in 2019 (second).
FRIDAY IS SENIOR DAY
Prior to Friday’s 2 p.m. game, the Wildcats will honor the nine members of the 2022 class.
They are: Trevor Candelaria, Brian Craven, Alex Fenton, Matthew Gravely, Blake Hely, John Hosmer, Casey Kruger, Gabe Levy and Parker Nolan.
SCOUTING THE PATRIOTS
George Mason comes to Davidson on a three-game winning streak, having swept A-10 rival George Washington last weekend.
The Patriots, 21-29 overall, are fifth in the league standings at 12-9.
Left-hander Ryan Peterson was named Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Week on Monday, after tossing a complete-game three-hitter against George Washington. He carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning and sat down 16 of the first 17 batters he faced.
Brett Ahalt is the Patriots’ top hitter with a .340 average, and five Patriots have driven in at least 30 runs, including Brett Stallings and Connor Dykstra, who have 32 RBIs apiece. Dykstra is also the team leader with six home runs, and South Trimble is the A-10 stolen bases leader with 25 swipes in 28 attempts.
RECORD WATCH
The Wildcats set another single-season team record in Tuesday’s loss at Duke. Jacob Hinderleider’s double was the team’s 127th of the season, which surpassed the 126 of 2005.
Michael Carico, with 18 home runs, is currently tied for the single-season Davidson mark with Will Robertson ’17.
Carico is also one off the single-season marks for extra base hits and runs with 38 and 63, respectively.
The pitching staff, having already topped the 421-strikeout record of 2019, is five strikeouts from 500.