EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. — The ESU baseball team heads into the final stretch of the regular season firing on all cylinders, now tied for first place in the PSAC East. They’ll look to continue their winning ways this week against Shepherd with a chance to clinch a spot in the PSAC Tournament.

SCOUTING EAST STROUDSBURG

• The Warriors are riding an 11-game winning streak, sweeping their last two PSAC East series while also defeating Queens and St. Thomas Aquinas in non-conference matchups.
• During the win streak, they’ve outscored their opponents 84-25, including three shutouts against Mansfield, Shippensburg, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
• ESU’s lineup seems to have settled in, as the Warriors worked around early-season injuries and have found their groove at the right time. Walker Zampella and Parker Frey have been ESU’s two constants at the plate all season long, batting third and fifth. Frey leads the team with a 1.064 OPS, while Zampella is right behind him with a 1.035. Both are coming off their best weekends of conference play, lighting up the Raiders’ pitchers. Frey went 7-12 in the four games, hitting four doubles and a home run, while Zampella went 6-13, scoring six times while hitting his team-leading fourth home run of the season.
• Troy Davis has earned the second spot in the lineup, becoming the everyday right fielder. He’s batting .344 with a .984 OPS, while also leading the team with 21 stolen bases on 25 attempts.
• At the back of the lineup, Easton Albert and Zander Condeelis have been steady all year, but are also peaking at the right time. Albert drove in the game-tying and game-winning RBIs in ESU’s walk-off win over Shippensburg on Saturday, and stayed hot with two more on Tuesday to bring his season total to 24. Condeelis, a redshirt freshman at third base batting ninth, bats .329 and strikes out the least on ESU, only striking out nine times.
• Cole Serfass has stepped up in the cleanup spot and left field, recording a hit in seven of his last eight games. He’s batting .339, fourth on the team, while leading the Warriors with 28 RBI.
• Chase Frantz has taken over the team’s designated hitter spot, as the freshman has played in seven-straight games. With nine starts in 17 games played, he hasn’t looked out of place at all, batting behind Frey and batting .382 with a .900 OPS.
• As a team, ESU is one of the most difficult groups in the entire conference to get out. The Warriors have an OBP of .440, second in the PSAC, have stolen 97 bases, the fourth most as well.
• Even with the offensive production ESU has gotten from its regular lineup, that’s just one half of the equation. The pitching has been stellar from the starting rotation to the back end of the bullpen, now with the third best ERA in the conference at 4.38, and a PSAC-best 315 strikeouts.
• All four of ESU’s starters now have a positive win-loss record on the season, as Ryan Dewees, Ethan Woods, Evan Hughes, and Peyton Brannock have led the charge on the mound. Dewees, the team’s No. 1 starter, comes into the series with the fifth-best ERA in the conference at 2.79. He’s also the PSAC leader in strikeouts with 66, limiting batters to a .236 batting average against.
• Ethan Woods is coming off of the first PSAC East Pitcher of the Week award of his career, shutting out Shippensburg in a five-inning start last Friday. He’ll start game two on Thursday, looking to carry momentum in search of his third straight win.
• Evan Hughes and Peyton Brannock round out the rotation as the day two starters, as Hughes leads the team with six wins while Brannock has improved to 4-2. Hughes has ran into trouble a couple of times out of his last three starts, but batters are still only hitting .247 against the junior. Brannock’s brought his ERA down to 6.84 after an early pull in his first start of the season, excluding the outing versus Molloy, his ERA would be at 5.07.
• As the season’s gone on, ESU’s bullpen has gotten deeper with, with more and more arms proving to be dependable in close conference games. First to be called on in relief has been a combination of Cole Dymek, Caden Leonard, and Cade Davis. Dymek, a righty, hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last four outings while only giving up three hits combined. Leonard has eaten innings for ESU in games where the Warriors go to the pen early, throwing 14.2 IP in his last four outings, including a season-high 4.1 IP against Shippensburg. He’s only given up four hits in 7.1 shutout innings in his two most recent outings.
• Davis may not be available until Friday after pitching six shutout innings of ESU’s 8-0 win at St. Thomas Aquinas. Outside of his short start against Queens last week, Davis has made three other appearances this month where he hasn’t allowed a run and only given up three hits.
• The fourth regular arm in the bullpen for ESU is Johansel Brito. He’s gone four-straight games without an earned run against, pitching one full inning each time and striking out five batters total.

SCOUTING SHEPHERD

• The Rams rely on their bats to lead them to wins, as they come into the weekend with a .318 batting average, fifth in the conference, making up for an 8.57 ERA, the second-highest in the PSAC.
• The Rams have stumbled as of late, losing five of their last six, snapping a five-game losing streak though with a 9-8 win at Frostburg State. Prior to last weekend, the Rams were in first place in the PSAC East, but have fallen to a three-way tie for third place with an 11-9 record.
• Shepherd’s lineup is led by Ryan Fluharty, a redshirt sophomore batting .418. He leads the team with a 1.156 OPS, slugging a team-high eight home runs. Fluharty has gone yard at least once in each of Shepherd’s last three series.
• Behind him, the Rams have a trio of other batters with an OPS of 1.000 or better. Bodie Pullen, Ethan Jones, and Nik Rubendall round out the group. Pullen is a perfect 21-21 on stolen base attempts, pairing that speed with five home runs and 41 RBI. Rubendall and Jones also have shown off their power, hitting six and five home runs each, though striking out 36 and 34 times, the two most on the team, respectively. 
• Wyatt Lamb was a midseason change into the starting lineup for Shepherd, making 14 starts in 19 games played. Though a limited sample size, he’s batting .396 with a 1.190 OPS.
• The Rams’ starting rotation is an area teams have been able to expose, as their three pitchers with the most starts, Allen Miller, Gavin Miller, and Henry Ortiz, all have an ERA north of 7.00. Additionally, batters are also hitting above .300. Allen and Gavin Miller lead Shepherd with 34 and 29 goals, respectively, and although Ortiz has struck out 20 batters, he’s given up 23 bases on balls.
• Once Shepherd turns to its bullpen, their pitching has settled down. Riley Morgan, Jesse Specter, and Conner Chancey are the Rams’ most used relievers, each with over 20.0 IP. Specter leads the bunch with a 3.57 ERA, while Riley has done the best job limiting hitters with a .238 batting average against. Completing Shepherd’s trio is Chancey with 20 strikeouts, the most out of the three.

SERIES HISTORY

• The Warriors and Rams series is relatively new, especially compared to the rest of their histories with PSAC East teams. ESU won two of the first three matchups in 2016 and 2017 before playing series against the Rams starting in 2021. Though the Rams forced a split in the four games last year, the Warriors have not lost a series to Shepherd in five meetings.
• With a 14-6-1 record overall, ESU is 6-3 at home and 6-2-1 at Shepherd.