The Longwood baseball team continued with its 2012 campaign this past week. The Lancers were defeated 6-0 at home by the William & Mary Tribe on April 4. The Lancers went on to take two out of three games on the road against North Carolina Central University. Longwood is now 17-16 overall (12-11 at home, 5-5 on the road).
Through 33 games, the Lancers are batting .297 as a team and are aver¬aging 6.1 runs per game. Junior Jus-tin Lacy is still the main offensive threat for the team, hitting .417 with five round trippers and nine doubles. Lacy has driven in 24 runs and has a .626 slugging percentage.
Senior Robby Newman is also get¬ting the job done at the plate. His batting average is an impressive .375 with nine homers and 13 doubles. He leads the team in RBI with 34. His slugging percentage is a little higher than Lacy's at .708.
Sophomore Scott Burkett is back in the lineup after sitting out several games with a groin injury. He is bat-ting .352 with three homeruns and 23 RBI. Classmate Alex Owens is hitting
.304 with four homeruns and 26 RBI. Owens had a big game against North Carolina Central on April 8. He went 4-4, hitting three homers and driving in seven runs. His three homeruns tied a school record for the most in a single game.
The Lancers scored 23 runs total in that game on April 8, the most the team had scored since 2010. Fresh-man Joey Varaksa is currently riding a seven-game hitting streak.
Longwood's pitching staff has a combined ERA (earned run average) of 4.60 with 187 total strikeouts. The staff has pitched a combined 276 in¬nings. Freshman right-hander Tyler Wislocki is 2-0 this season with an ERA of 3.00. He has appeared in 12 games this season and has struck out 13 batters through 21 innings. Sophomore righty Ryan Schubert (3-1, 3.00 ERA, 18.0 IP, 11K, two saves), freshman left-hander Brandon Vick (4-1, 3.28 ERA, 35.2 IP, 25K), junior right-hander Kyler Morgan (4-3, 3.63 ERA, 52.0 IP, 34K), senior righty Matt Gwaltney (0-4, 3.83 ERA, 51.2 IP, 31K, one save) and freshman right-hander Aaron Myers (1-0, 4.40 ERA, 28.2 IP, 32K, one save) have all seen action on the mound for the Lancers this sea¬son.
Longwood will play tonight against future Big South opponent Virginia Military Institute (VMI). The first pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. in Lex¬ington. VMI is coached by ninth-year head coach Marlin Ikenberry. The Keydets are 11-20 overall (4-8 in the Big South).
The Lancers will play in a big prime time home game April 17 against Virginia Commonwealth University. First pitch is set for 7 p.m.
Also of note this week, the Lancers added a home game to their schedule. Duke University of the Atlantic Coast Conference will come to Farmville on May 6 at 2 p.m.
Tyler Wislocki walks across the field, ball in hand, contemplating the next play.
