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PENSACOLA, Fla. – The UWF baseball team hits the road for a 3-game series against Christian Brothers this weekend, at Nadicksbernd Field in Memphis, Tennessee. The teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday at 11 a.m. and a single game on Sunday at Noon.
ABOUT THE ARGONAUTS
* UWF improved to 7-5 overall and 5-1 in the GSC with a series win over Shorter last week.
* UWF is hitting .249 (174th in the NCAA) as a team and has 25 extra base hits (20 2B, 1 3B 4 HR). The pitching staff has compiled a 3.82 ERA (3rd GSC, 43rd nationally) and held opponents to a .221 batting average. The team's 2.69 walks allowed by Nine IP is 11th in the NCAA and leads the GSC. In the field, UWF has a .984 fielding pct. to rank fourth in the country and has turned 12 double plays to rank 12th nationally.
* On the base paths, the Argonauts are 26-for-29 in stolen base attempts.
Chris Johnson leads the team with 9-for-9 and
Trent Jeffcoat is second at 8-for-8.
* 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 Argos return 15 letterwinners and eight starters from a year ago. They have added 11 transfers, one redshirt freshman and nine true freshmen.
SPOON BALL ALIVE AND WELL
* Some baseball experts call it small ball but at UWF we have Spoon Ball. The Argonauts will not wow you with power but
Mike Jeffcoat's teams are consistently good base runners, bunt well, and have very strong pitching and defense. 2022 is no exception early on as 68 of the team's 93 hits (73%) are singles and they are bunting at a .700 clip with 11 sacrifices.
42ND SEASON OF UWF BASEBALL
* UWF enters the weekend with an all-time mark of 1288-859-1 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 544-291 in 16-plus 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 GOING STRONG IN 17TH SEASON AS UWF HEAD COACH
* UWF alum
Mike Jeffcoat has compiled a 544-291 in 16-plus 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 29 of their last 35 3-game series over the past 3-plus seasons.
* Of the six series they have lost, two are to Florida Southern (2019 & 2020), two at Rollins (2019 & 2022), one to Shorter (2021) and one to Lee (2019).
* In GSC 3-game series, UWF is 26-2 over that time, leading the conference in series wins.
DOUBLE YOUR TROUBLE
* With GSC play ongoing, that means doubleheaders will dominate much of the season. The Argos will play 10 doubleheaders throughout the season.
* Over the last four seasons (2019-present), UWF has played 29 DHs, sweeping 16, splitting 12 and being swept just once. UWF has not lost a DH in 28 of the last 29 DHs.
* In the last seven seasons, UWF has not been swept in a DH even once in four of those and has never been swept more than they have swept an opponent.
UWF'S WEEKEND ROTATION
* UWF is scheduled to use the same starting rotation as the first four weeks of the year.
* Fifth-year senior righthander
Josh Pahlad is 1-2 with a 3.20 ERA over 25.1 innings. He has 23 strikeouts and is coming off a 9-K game against Shorter, where he tied his career-high.
* Long Island transfer
Salvatore Ferro is 2-0 and has won his last two starts while posting a 4.03 season ERA. The lefthander is a junior from Middle Village, N.Y. and went 0-1 with a 2.16 ERA in 17 innings over 16 games in 2021 for the Sharks. He struck out a career-high six in a career-high 6.1 innings two weeks ago against West Georgia.
*
Tyler Dowdy is 2-1 with a 4.44 ERA in four starts this season. He has struck out 11 and waked four over 24.1 IP. As a freshman in 2021, he went 7-1 with a 3.38 ERA, 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.
JEFFCOAT PERFORMING AS ADVERTISED
* UWF sophomore transfer
Trent Jeffcoat has performed very well through four weeks of play, reaching base in every game and collecting at least one hit in 11 of 12 games with a team-high .360 batting average, five RBI and a team-high 10 runs scored. He has three errors in 58 chances for a .948 fielding pct.
STREAKS & STUFF
*
Josh Prizina brings a 5-game hitting streak into the weekend, while
Alden Davis has a 4-gamer. The season-long is 9 games by
Trent Jeffcoat to open the season.
*
Trent Jeffcoat has reached base in all 12 games this season. The next longest stretch is
Chris Johnson's current 8-game streak.
* Jeffcoat has a team-high five multi-hit games, followed by
Alden Davis and
Preston Moore with three multi-hit performance each.
*
Alden Davis leads the team with 11 RBI, including a 5- and 3-RBI game.
ABOUT CHRISTIAN BROTHERS
* CBU is 5-7 on the season and 1-2 in GSC play. They lost their league series on the road to Mississippi College last week, winning the first game 3-1 before dropping both ends of the doubleheader, 7-3 and 8-6.
* The Bucs are hitting .263 and have an on-base pct. of .378. They are 8-of-12 on the base paths.
* The pitching staff has a 5.48 ERA and averages 6.6 strikeouts and 4.1 walks per game. Sam Brumbaugh and Travis Cole lead the team with 14 SO each.
* Van True (.451/1/10) and Jarrett Fowles (.435/2/6) are both hitting over .400 and have 11 of the team's 29 extra base hits.
UWF-CBU SERIES HISTORY
* UWF leads the series 26-2 since joining the GSC in 1995. The Argonauts have won the last 24 meetings with the Bucs dating back to a doubleheader split on March 24, 2012. The teams were in different divisions and did not play GSC regular-season games from when CBU joined the league in 1997-2011. They did split a midweek DH in 2004 in Pensacola.
* This weekend marks UWF's first visit to CBU since the 2018 season.
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.
