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PENSACOLA, Fla. – The 10th-ranked UWF baseball team will open its 42n season of play at home this weekend with a 3-game series against Florida Southern. First pitch at Jim Spooner Field is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday and Noon on Sunday.
 
On Friday, pregame tailgating begins at 2:30 p.m. in the parking lot adjacent to the first base line. 
 
Ticket prices are $8 for adults, $5 for seniors ages 65 and older and military. Children under 12 and UWF students with a valid Nautilus card are free. 
 
ABOUT THE ARGONAUTS
* UWF went 37-11 in 2021 and finished second in the Gulf South Conference at 28-8. The Argos won the GSC Tournament title and hosted the NCAA South Regional as the No. 1 seed where they lost in the regional final. The members of the 2021 team will receive championship rings in a ceremony prior to Saturday's game.
* The Argos return 15 letterwinners and eight starters from a year ago. They have added 11 transfers, one redshirt freshman and nine true freshmen.
 
42ND SEASON OF UWF BASEBALL
* UWF enters the season with an all-time mark of 1284-854-1 dating back to the first season in 1981. Jim Spooner went 688-521-1 in 23 seasons from 1983-2005, while Mike Jeffcoat has compiled a 540-286 in 16 seasons since taking over for Spoon.
* UWF has made eight NCAA Regional appearances with one National Championship in 2011. The team has won six GSC regular-season titles and two GSC Tournament crowns.
 
JEFFCOAT ENTERS 17TH SEASON AS UWF HEAD COACH
* UWF alum Mike Jeffcoat has compiled a 540-286 in 16 seasons at UWF since taking over for his mentor, Jim Spooner, in 2006. He was an assistant for Spooner from 2001-05 when he served as the pitching coach.
* UWF has made all eight of the program's NCAA postseason appearances under Jeffcoat, including the program's first national championship in 2011. 
* He was the head coach at Alabama Southern CC from 1995-99 where he went 107-138.
* Jeffcoat received his bachelor's degree in Sports Science from UWF in 1991 and his master's in Sports Science in 1994.
 
SERIES BUSINESS
* The Argonauts have won 27 of their last 32 3-game series over the past three seasons.
* Of the five series they have lost, two are to Florida Southern (2019 & 2020), one at Rollins (2019), one to Shorter (2021) and one to Lee (2019).
* UWF is 25-2 in GSC 3-game series over that time, leading the conference in series wins.
 
WE'RE GOING POLLING
* UWF The UWF baseball team is ranked tenth in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Preseason Top 25 Poll. Additionally, the Argonauts are second in the NCBWA South Region poll.
* The preseason rank is the highest for the program since starting the 2014 season at No. 4 in the Collegiate Baseball poll. This is the highest NCBWA ranking to start the season in school history, matching the 2012 preseason listing.
* UWF was previously announced at No. 27 in the Collegiate Baseball Preseason Top 25.
 
UWF TABBED FIRST IN GSC PRESEASON POLL
* UWF was picked to finish first in the 2022 Gulf South Conference Preseason Coaches Poll. This is the second-consecutive year the Argonauts were picked first and the sixth time in the last 11 seasons.
* In a balanced top-half of the poll, UWF received five of 12 possible first place votes and a total of 136 polling points.
* Delta State and Lee each had three first place votes and were second and third, respectively. Alabama Huntsville in fourth and Valdosta State in fifth had the remaining two first place votes and were in a near dead heat with just one point apart.
* Shorter was voted sixth with West Georgia in seventh. The bottom half of the standings included Mississippi College, Auburn Montgomery, Montevallo, West Alabama, Union and Christian Brothers.
 
UWF'S WEEKEND ROTATION
* UWF will send righthander Josh Pahlad to the mound on opening day. Pahlad has been primarily a reliever in his four seasons at UWF, posting a 10-2 record with seven saves and a 3.38 ERA over 101.1 innings and 53 appearances. This will be his fifth career start and first since a brilliant outing in an elimination game in the NCAA Regional a year ago at home. In that game he tossed a complete-game, 1-hitter against Lee with a career-high nine strikeouts. The fifth-year senior from Kissimmee, Fla. went 3-0 with three saves and a 3.76 ERA in 16 appearances over a career-high 40.2 IP. His only time facing FSC came in 2019 when he allowed one hit in 2.0 innings for a save in a 9-5 victory.
* Long Island transfer Salvatore Ferro is slated to start on Saturday for his first action in a UWF uniform. The lefthander is a junior from Middle Village, N.Y. He went 0-1 with a 2.16 ERA in 17 innings over 16 games last year for the Sharks. He struck out a career-high five in a career-high four innings against Merrimack on May 22.
* Tyler Dowdy had a strong freshman season in 2021, compiling a 7-1 record, 3.38 ERA with 55 strikeouts and 18 walks in 85.1 innings. Twice he struck out eight batters – once against Lee in the final weekend of the regular season and against Delta State (2 hits over 8.1 IP) in the second game of the GSC Championship series. The righthander from Plant City, Fla. also hit .273 at the plate with nine hits, a home run and five RBI. He also walked five times and struck out nine.
 
O'SHEA PRIMED FOR STRONG SENIOR SEASON
* Senior Cullan O'Shea was a second-team All-GSC choice a year ago after he hit .339 and led the team with 11 home runs – five in the postseason, 55 runs, 17 doubles and a .620 slugging percentage. He is currently tied for eighth in UWF history with 14 homers and third with a .575 slugging pct.
* The 6-foot-2 first baseman from Mobile, Ala. was placed onto the preseason All-GSC and All-South Region squads last month.
 

ABOUT FLORIDA SOUTHERN
* FSC went 15-11 in 2021 in a schedule against Sunshine State Conference teams only. The Mocs were 14-8 in 2020 before the COVID-19 shutdown. They won the South Region in 2018 and went 45-11-1.
* FSC returns nine position players and 14 pitchers. Connor Berry was a SSC First Team selection last year after hitting .357 with 23 RBI primarily from the DH spot.
* The Mocs were picked to finish second in the SSC Coaches Poll.
* Lance Niekro (FSC, 2010) is in his 10th season leading the Mocs and has a 239-161-1 record. He played for the Mocs in 1999 & 2000.
* The Mocs have won nine NCAA D2 National Championships with the last coming in 2005. They won four in the 1970s, three in the 1980s and one in 1995 before 2005.
 
UWF-FSC SERIES HISTORY
* FSC leads the series 28-18 overall, while the teams are 10-10 in games played in Pensacola. The rivalry began with a pair of 7-inning contests on Feb. 15, 1986 in Lakeland at Historic Henley Field.
* This marks the ninth time in the last 10 seasons the squads will face each other in the first games of the year. The teams have played in a 3-game set every year from 2007-20.
 
-- GoArgos.com --