EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. — The Warriors look for their first conference series win of the season, as the baseball team opens this weekend on the road at Bloomsburg.

SCOUTING EAST STROUDSBURG

• ESU is coming off a 3-1 series loss to West Chester, splitting the first two games at Creekview Park but falling in both road contests.
• Despite dropping both games at West Chester, the Warriors held leads late in the games. ESU broke a scoreless tie in the top of the sixth of the third game of the series, but gave up six runs in the bottom half to fall 6-2. In the series finale, ESU held a 7-2 advantage heading into the bottom of the fifth, but the Golden Rams scored six unanswered runs to walk off the Warriors, 8-7.
• ESU’s gotten reliable pitching from their three usual starters in conference play two series into the season so far. Ryan Dewees headlines the group as the weekend opener, as he’s coming off an outing where he kept the Golden Rams off the scoreboard through the first six innings and finished with 10 strikeouts. His ERA ranks second on the team, with a mark of 2.55, but his 43 strikeouts on the year lead ESU.
• Ethan Woods got his second win of the season last weekend against the Golden Rams, improving his ERA to 3.64 in the victory. He’s given up the fewest extra-base hits of ESU’s top three starting pitchers, only allowing four in seven appearances and 29.2 IP.
• Evan Hughes continues to make a name for himself with another strong performance in his second PSAC East start. His ERA slightly went up after last weekend’s game at West Chester, but he narrowly holds an advantage over Dewees for the best figure of ESU’s starting pitchers with an ERA of 2.51. Batters are also only hitting .193 on him, another category he leads the Warriors’ starters in.
• The fourth starting spot is still up for grabs, though Peyton Brannock turned in a solid outing in last weekend’s contest. He allowed two runs, one earned, with batters hitting .257 against him.
• One area the Warriors are searching for consistency in is their bullpen. Jake Albert had nearly two full shutout innings to close out the second game of the series at Creekview Park for his fourth save of the season, but Albert and the rest of the relief pitchers ran into trouble at West Chester. Of the four bullpen arms used in last week’s series, Cole Dymek leads the group with a 2.45 ERA in 11.0 IP. If ESU is able to start consistently winning three or four games of their in-conference series, the group of Albert, Dymek, Johansel Brito, and Cade Davis settling in will be a pivotal reason why.
• At the plate, the Warriors’ bats have gradually started to show a little bit more pop as they’ve gotten deeper into conference play. Connor Reilly broke a streak of 10-straight games without a home run in ESU’s last time out, and Walker Zampella gave the Warriors their third multi-home run game of the season as well. Zampella had his best series of the season against West Chester’s pitching, going 7-12 with five RBI. He’s now second on the team with a .999 OPS and leading ESU with a .534 slugging percentage.
• Reilly looks to fully break a mini-slump, finishing his last game going 2-3 with his first two hits in PSAC East play this season. He still leads ESU in bases on balls with 20, and has provided excellent defense behind the plate with a .994 fielding percentage.
• Parker Frey leads the team in OPS with a 1.001 mark that just barely clears 1.000. He’s hitting .342 on the season and slugging .521, leading the team in batting average while only trailing Zampella in slugging. Similar to Reilly, he’s been his usual self defensively at first base, recording 170 putouts for a perfect fielding percentage. 
• Near the back of ESU’s lineup, Easton Albert is getting on base consistently as he’s riding a seven-game hitting streak. He’s recorded multiple hits in two of those games, delivering three extra base hits between the middle games versus West Chester. He’s now batting .338, the third-best on the team.

SCOUTING BLOOMSBURG

• Coming off a sweep against Shippensburg, the Huskies are 15-6 overall and 5-3 in conference play. They opened their PSAC East slate falling in three of the four games against Shepherd. 
• Center fielder Grant Russo is coming off a series where he was named the PSAC East Athlete of the Week, going 8-16 at the plate with three RBI. He’s the conference leader in stolen bases with 25 on the season, and ranks second in batting average with .466, third in OPS with .554, and third in runs as well with 30. 
• Russo’s success at the plate has helped the Huskies build up the fifth-best team batting average in the conference, coming in with a mark of .308. Behind Russo is Matt Freda, who’s batting .373. Though his slugging percentage is only .392, he has an OBP of .522 with 12 RBI.
• Most of Bloomsburg’s batting production has come by committee, but Drew Balestrini qualifies as their third-best hitter of the season. He has an OPS of .869, leading the team with 17 RBI and eight extra-base hits.
• The Huskies’ best starter this season has been the third pitcher in their rotation, Aiden Murphy. The two-time PSAC East Pitcher of the Week has an ERA of just 1.11, only giving up five extra-base hits in 111 at-bats, as batters are only hitting .162 against him. Murphy earned the honor most recently after a week where he threw 13 scoreless innings across games versus Penn State Berks and Seton Hill.
• After already facing two of the top three teams in the conference in team ERA, Bloomsburg will round out that group with the second-best mark with 3.49. Ahead of Murphy in the rotation are Brandon Wozniak and Andrew Armstrong. Wozniak opened the series against Shippensburg, improving to 3-0 on the season. He comes in with an ERA of 2.22 and a batting average against of .273, the highest of the trio in both categories.
• Armstrong has an ERA of 1.61 with a record of 2-1, leading the team in strikeouts. He’s sat down 32 batters in 103 at-bats. 
• The Huskies have three other arms with 10.0 IP or more, with Bryce Danish throwing 13.2 IP, Landon Lorson throwing 12.2 IP, and Xander Velez throwing 10.0 IP. Velez has the lowest ERA of the group, coming in with a 4.50 ERA.
• Lorson has the highest ERA out of those three with 7.11, leading the team in home runs allowed. He’s given up six total extra-base hits, half of which have been home runs.
• Danish is 2-0 in his six appearances with one start, but has given up an opposing batting average of .315 while building an ERA of 5.27.

SERIES HISTORY

• ESU has had plenty of recent success versus the Huskies, sweeping the last two series against them. Over the last two seasons, ESU has outscored Bloomsburg 63-24, with 18 of those Bloomsburg runs coming in 17-10 and 14-8 Warrior wins at Bloomsburg last year. The Warriors have also recorded four shutouts in that span, winning two of those games in low-scoring 1-0 affairs.
• The Warriors have won seven of the 17 series against Bloomsburg under Head Coach John Kochmansky, splitting in four other series. 
• All-time, ESU is 130-112-4 versus Bloomsburg, with the teams playing at least once every year since 1958. ESU has pulled off four-game sweeps in 1986, 1999, 2009, 2016, 2024, and 2025. The only three times the Huskies won all four games in a series against the Warriors were in 1990, 1991, and 1997.