Davidson Baseball Hosts The Citadel Friday, Senior Day DH Sunday

DAVIDSON, N.C – The Davidson baseball team will open a crucial three-game Southern Conference series with The Citadel at Wilson Field Friday at 5 p.m. and conclude it with a Senior Day doubleheader on Sunday starting at 1 p.m.

The two teams will not play on Saturday in order to allow The Citadel seniors to attend graduation ceremonies back in Charleston. The Wildcats will honor their own seniors in between games Sunday.

Freshman LHP Henry Sisson (4.25, 3-2) will take the mound for Davidson (16-26, 7-17 SoCon) in the series opener and will face RHP Austin Pritcher (3.61, 5-3) of The Citadel (20-26, 9-12 SoCon). Senior Ryan Overcash (4.80, 3-7) will make his final start at Wilson Field in the first game of the doubleheader Sunday is slated to face LHP Kevin Connell (3.52, 1-4). The starting pitchers for the series finale have not been announced.

Leading Off
- This is the final weekend series of the season at Wilson Field. The home finale will be Wednesday, May 9 at 6 p.m. against USC Upstate. The regular season will conclude Thursday and Friday, May 17-18 at Furman.

- Davidson is looking to reach the SoCon tournament for the first time since 2009, as only eight teams from the 11-member league qualify. The Citadel (9-12), Furman (7-14), Davidson, (7-17), UNCG (6-15) and Wofford (5-16) are competing for the final two places in the field. Davidson just has series against The Citadel and Furman remaining. The Citadel additionally must face Furman and fourth-place Elon (16-8). Furman also faces Wofford. UNCG will finish the season with first-place Appalachian State (16-5), Wofford and second-place College of Charleston (19-8).

- The Wildcats are looking to snap a seven-game losing streak after falling to No. 3 South Carolina, 2-1.

- Senior CF Drew Gadaire leads the team in hitting (.314) and RBI (31).

The Series
VS. THE CITADEL: Davidson trails in the all-time series, 60-114, which dates back to 1902. Davidson took two of three games in last year's series in Charleston, while the Bulldogs won two of three games in their last visit to Wilson Field in 2009.

About The Citadel
The Bulldogs enter the series after splitting a pair of midweek games with North Florida, a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference. Justin Mackert leads the team with five home runs and 29 RBI, and is batting .290. Nick Orvin is batting .278 and has 309 career hits. The Citadel claimed two of three from Georgia Southern last weekend.

GREAT GADAIRE: Senior Drew Gadaire continues to be Davidson's leading hitter (.314) after leading the team last season batting .362. Gadaire joined the team as a true walk-on and earned the team's rookie of the year award and a place on the SoCon All-Freshman team (2009), and has been the team's MVP the past two seasons. Gadaire has also been strong defensively primarily playing in centerfield. He robbed a potential game-tying home run in the Wofford series. Gadaire and classmate Seth Freeman are the team captains.

GADAIRE ON DAVIDSON CAREER RECORDS LISTS

Category	Place	Total	Next	Record
Hits	3rd	237	250 (Heafner '06)	272 (Frend '02)
Doubles	5th	50	52 (Two tied)	57 (Benefield '05)
Triples	t-8th	7	8 (Three tied)	12 (Goodwin '98)
Extra Base Hits	8th	74	75 (Lewis '87)	94 (Frend '02)
Total Bases	6th	352	369 (Boretti '94)	439 (Frend '02)
RBI	10th	129	131 (Bender '92)	183 (Turgeon '87)
At-bats	6th	720	735 (Two tied)	787 (Frend '02)
HBP	3rd	24	26 (Boretti '94)	27 (Davis '99)
Sac Flies	t-8th	8	9 (Two tied)	16 (Boretti '94)

KILLER B'S: Senior right fielder Jake Berman and sophomore left fielder Forrest Brandt have heated up at the plate. Berman hit his team-leading sixth home run of the season against Samford on Saturday and batted .279 with 16 RBI and five homers for the month of April. Brandt has gone 18-for-43 (.419) in his last 10 games, raising his batting average from .244 to .289.

THIEVES: Davidson entered the week ranked 39th in the nation in stolen bases per game at 1.51, with 64 total to rank fourth in the Southern Conference. Forrest Brandt leads the team and ranks seventh in the SoCon with 15 stolen bases. The Wildcats stole a team record 10 bases at Presbyterian (4/10).

WALK THIS WAY: Davidson leads the SoCon with 189 bases on balls this season. Leadoff batter Jake Berman is fifth in the league with 29 free passes, while Michael Zeblo is tied for sixth in the league with 28. Zeblo tied Davidson's single-game record with four at Presbyterian (4/10).

IRONMEN: 3B Andrew Barna, LF Forrest Brandt, and CF Drew Gadaire have started each game this season. Gadaire has a pair of starts at first base.

TOUGH TRAVELS: On the road, Davidson is 5-6 against teams that have not been nationally ranked at any point this season, and 0-9 against teams that have been ranked at some point in the season. Davidson is 11-11 at its home park, Wilson Field.

SISSON THROWS NO-HITTER: Davidson LHP Henry Sisson threw the sixth no-hitter in Davidson history and the first since 2001 as the Wildcats shut out Wofford, 1-0 (4/13). The milestone came in just Sisson's fifth career start as he upped his record to 2-1. He allowed four base runners on three walks and an error and matched his career high of nine strikeouts. The no-hitter was the first in the SoCon since College of Charleston combined to blank Western Carolina in 2004, and it was the first complete game no-hitter by a starter since The Citadel's T.A. Fulmer shut down East Tennessee State in 2002. Sisson's no-hitter was recognized as the top pitching performance in the nation for the week by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, as the publication named him Louisville Slugger's National Pitcher of the Week and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA), which also named him the National Pitcher of the Week. Sisson was also named to the College Baseball Hall of Fame National All-Star Lineup and the CollegeBaseballInsider.com National Pitcher of the Week. A game ball from his no-hitter was sent to the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

OVERCASH NAMED SOCON STUDENT-ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Ryan Overcash was named the SoCon Student-Athlete of the Week after tossing his first career complete game in a 2-1 victory over Wofford (4/14) with a career-high 11 K's. The RHP maintains a 3.74 GPA in economics
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BREAK OUT THE BROOMS: The three-game SoCon series sweep of Wofford was Davidson's first since 2009 when it took three from UNCG at home.

YOUNG ARMS: Of the 14 relief pitchers Davidson has called upon this season, seven are freshmen (Ben Arkin, Rob Bain, Clark Beeker, Ryan Lowe, Nick Neitzel, Matt Saeta and Henry Sisson), two were originally exclusive position players (Bryan DaCanal and Michael Zeblo) and two (Justin Charles and Michael Loeb) did not appear in a game last season. Just one, sophomore Jip Richards, was regularly called into action last season. Brian Russell made his first relief appearance vs. Duke (3/27) after making six starts, while sophomore Danny Mooney made his first relief appearance at UNCG (4/21, G2). One of the biggest adjustments Davidson is making in 2012 is adapting to the absence of bullpen stalwart Mike Frongello. The reliable, righty-reliever concluded his stellar four-year career by breaking the SoCon's all-time appearance record in the 2011 season finale, taking the ball for the 136th time. He appeared in 39 of 48 games last season, throwing 67.1 innings (second on the team) and posted a team low 2.54 ERA. Also missing from the bullpen is flamethrower Andy Bass, who graduated and was drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 18th round. Starter Chris Lamb elected to forego his senior season after the Oakland A's selected him in the 11th round last year, so combined with the departure of graduating seniors, Davidson lost nearly 68 percent of last year's innings pitched.

CLOSER BY COMMITTEE: Four different pitchers have earned Davidson's seven saves this season. Freshmen Clark Beeker and Matt Saeta and junior Michael Zeblo, who primarily plays shortstop, have two each. Zeblo earned Davidson's first save of the season and most recent against Wofford (4/15). Freshman Ryan Lowe earned his first save at USC Upstate (4/3) after Saeta ran into trouble in the ninth inning.

HOME RUN PARADOX: Davidson is just 4-7 in games in which a Wildcat hits a home run.

STREAKS END: OF Drew Gadaire saw his 27-game reached base streak, which dated back to last season come to an end vs. Duke (3/27) with an 0-for-4 night. It also ended an eight-game hitting streak. 1B Calvin Sigelbaum reached base in 15-straight games after moving into the starting lineup, but failed to reach base in the series finale at Coll. of Charleston (3/25). Sigelbaum and Gadaire are tied for the longest hiting streaks of the season, as Sigelbaum had a hit in each of his first eight starts.

BONUS BASEBALL: Four of Davidson's games this year have gone into extra innings, including three SoCon games. Davidson fell to Ohio and Appalachian State earlier in the year in games that went 10 innings and defeated Elon in back-to-back 11 inning contests. The Wildcats had four extra inning games all of last season.

TEAM OF THE WEEK HONORABLE MENTION: Davidson earned a “Team of the Week” honorable mention (Mar. 12-18) from CollegeBaseballInsider.com, after going 3-1 with a pair of dramatic wins 11th inning wins over Elon.

THEY FOUGHT LIKE WILDCATS: No. 6 UNC needed a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth inning and NCBWA Stopper of the Year Watch List selection RHP Michael Morin to defeat Davidson on Mar. 6. Trailing 4-2 in the sixth inning, the Wildcats tied the game at 4-4 with a pair of runs, putting them in position to pull off the upset.

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