CLINTON, S.C. – The Presbyterian College baseball team
(19-26, 4-14) returns home this weekend to host Winthrop (21-25, 9-9) in the
team's final home series of 2011.
The Blue Hose will honor their six seniors prior to
Saturday's game at 2 p.m. The group of Carl Della Torre III, Mack Hite, Nate Horton, Alex Loftin, Rodney Scruggs and Drew Wingo has led the Blue Hose into
the Division I era, helping PC attain 19 wins this year—the most since changing
classifications from Division II. Three of the players (Hite, Horton and Wingo)
mark the first class to play all four years in Division I at PC.
PC broke a 15-game losing streak on Tuesday with a 9-4 road
victory over the Davidson Wildcats, tying Head Coach Elton Pollock's highest
single-season win total (19, set in 2006).
On Thursday, sophomore shortstop Andrew Williams
captured Capital One Academic All-District III Second Team honors for his work
in the classroom, maintaining a 3.96 grade point average as a psychology major.
The Blue Hose trail in the all-time
series 5-1 but took the final game of last year's series in dramatic fashion,
taking an 8-7 victory in 13 innings on May 2, 2010. Gabe Grammer lifted PC to
the win with a leadoff home run in the final frame.
Winthrop enters this weekend's series
with a 21-25 overall record and a 9-9 marker in Big South play. The Eagles
dropped a Wednesday night matchup at The Citadel, 7-4, and have lost nine of
their last 12. The team took two from Mercer in a home series last week after a
narrow loss to No. 25 UNC Charlotte on April 26. C/OF/DH Eddie Rohan leads the
team with a .351 average and 33 RBI, one of four players with a batting average
above .300.
Freshman C/1B Brad Zebedis leads the team
in nearly every batting category. Zebedis leads the Blue Hose in average
(.421), hits (72), total bases (121), runs (36), home runs (10), RBI (45),
slugging percentage (.708) and on-base percentage (.479). Zebedis also leads
the conference in several of the same categories, including batting average,
hits, home runs, slugging percentage and total bases.
Senior outfielder/infielder Mack Hite
enters this weekend having started in PC's last 112 games, the longest streak
of any player on the Blue Hose roster. The stretch began on April 24, 2009, in
a start against Coastal Carolina and the senior is one of four players to start
every game so far this season. Hite's sacrifice fly against Liberty on April 17
marked his 33rd career sacrifice, the modern-era (since 1988) career record at
PC. He enters this weekend with 34 after setting the single-season record in
2009 and 2010, with 14 each year.
The Blue Hose hit the road for the final
eight games of the season, beginning with a Tuesday trip to defending national champion
South Carolina.
