March 31, 2011
PHILADELPHIA - Fresh off a win on Tuesday afternoon in round one of the 2011 Liberty Bell Classic, the baseball team will return to A-10 play this weekend when Rhode Island will visit Hank DeVincent Field for a three-game series.
The Explorers (14-10, 1-2) earned a hard-fought victory over the Quakers earlier this week to advance in this year's version of the Classic. La Salle will take on Villanova in round two on Tuesday, April 5 at home with the winner earning a trip to Citizen's Bank Park on April 12 for the championship game.
As for this weekend, La Salle will look to get back on the winning track in conference play after dropping the final two games of last weekend's A-10 opening series to Fordham.
RHP Kevin Fuqua (2-3, 3.40) was the lone victor from last weekend's crop of starting pitchers and the senior will start game one again on Friday for La Salle. Fuqua pitched into the ninth and struck out a season-high six batters in last Friday's 2-1 win over Fordham, the only victory of the series for La Salle.
Offensivley, Jeff Flax has been the hottest and most consistent hitter for La Salle this season and carries a 21-game hitting streak into Friday's series-opener. On the season, Flax is hitting .366 and leads the team with 37 hits.
Marc Schoch is not too far behind with a team-high .388 batting average and 31 hits in 80 at-bats. Schoch and Jon Gyles, the number four and five hitters in the La Salle lineup, have packed the greatest punch offensively and are tied for the team-lead with 17 RBI.
The La Salle bullpen has been outstanding all season and Tuesday's win over Penn was no different. The Explorer pen got out of several key jams and successfully bridged the gap to closer Pat Christensen, who recorded the final six outs of the contest to earn his sixth save of the season. The sophomore has tallied 17 saves in his brief La Salle career, already good enough for second on the all-time list.
So far in 2011, Christensen has been virtually unhittable, allowing only two earned runs and 13 hits in 19 innings pitched with only one walk and 23 strikeouts.
Friday's series opener against the Rams is scheduled for 3 p.m. with Saturday's middle-game set for 1 p.m. and the finale on Sunday pushed back to 1:30 p.m. to accomodate the La Salle women's lacrosse game against UMass which will take place earlier on Sunday morning. Fans can follow the games on GoExplorers.com using gametracker or on twitter with live tweet updates throughout the entire series.
