NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- The Christopher Newport baseball team won three of four games last week including a pair against nationally-ranked Penn State Harrisburg and the performance lifted the Captains (10-4) to No. 19 in this week's D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25 Rankings. CNU will host the United States Coast Guard Academy (1-2) on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. to put the top-20 billing to the test for the first time.
The matchup against the Bears is the tenth all-time meeting between the two programs with Christopher Newport boasting a 7-2 advantage heading into Wednesday's first pitch. The teams played eight games from 1983-90 before reigniting the series with a game at Captains Park last season.
Live stats and a live video webcast will be available at CNUsports.com.
The Captains have won five of the last six games and are 10-4 overall this year. The offense is averaging 8.9 runs per game with four players driving in at least 13 runs so far this season. Junior first baseman
Aaron Maxie is leading the squad with 21 RBI while junior
Cameron Slough has added 17 runs driven in. Seniors
Josh Reinhold and
Jake Benedict round out the quartet of top run producers with 13 RBI. They represent four of the top five starters in the lineup and have combined for 60 runs scored this season.
Heading into the mid-week matchup against Coast Guard, Benedict boasts a team-high 10-game hitting streak while his brother,
Sam Benedict, is next with an eight-game roll. Slough has reached base in all 14 games this year while the Benedicts each have an active double-digit streak with 11 straight for Sam and 10 in a row for Jake.
On the mound, veteran right-handers
Jackson Baird (1-1, 2.53 ERA) and
Cooper Newell (3-0, 2.86 ERA) have led the way through four starts each. Baird has struck out 27 batters while Newell is right behind with 24 K's at this point. Out of the pen, sophomore
Charlie Gunn has made eight relief appearances and ranks fifth in the nation in total appearances this year. He has one save and 11 strikeouts over 8.2 innings pitched.
Coast Guard has played just three games so far this season after opening the year on the Spring Break trip to the south. The Bears dropped two of three against Catholic this weekend and also face Randolph-Macon on Tuesday before traveling to Newport News. Nate Stafford has gotten off to a hot start, with six hits in 11 at-bats for a .545 average including two doubles.
Following the game, the Captains will travel to Hampden-Sydney College on Thursday, March 12 for a 3:00 p.m. matchup against the Tigers. Then, CNU will take on another set of Tigers, from Wittenberg University, for a three-game series this weekend at Captains Park.
