University of Memphis baseball team (8-4) begins a long stretch of road games, as they travel to Wilmington, North Carolina, to play UNC Wilmington Seahawks (9-3).
Tigers fell to Ole Miss Tuesday night 8-1, as they saw their seven-game winning streak wither away.
Memphis is having their best start of the season since 2017 when they went 7-5 during their first 12 games. The Tigers are 8-4 during the first dozen of games.
Memphis Tigers
Memphis baseball had a record-setting weekend before their defeat against Ole Miss. Even though they played a struggling Western Illinois squad, the Tigers put up astronomical numbers. The team put up 20-plus runs on two separate occasions.
The first came on the Friday where they beat the Leathernecks 24-3. The second came on Sunday where the Tigers won 23-8.
The Preseason All-American, Hunter Goodman, showed WIU and the nation why he was awarded with an All-American title. The Arlington, Tenn. native went for 9-16 (.563) with two doubles, four homeruns, seven runs scored and 22 RBI. 11 of the 22 came on Sunday which was a program and American Athletic Conference single-game record.
Although Goodman did struggle against Ole Miss on Tuesday only going 1-4 at the plate, the Memphis sophomore catcher was awarded for National player of the Week earlier this week.
Another player that has been showing good production is freshman infielder, Austin Baskin. Baskin went 4-6 Sunday against WIU. He drove in a career-best of 3 RBI and recorded his first two collegiate home runs.
Baskin along with Taylor Howell and Max Hildreth founded a hitting spark on the bottom of the batting order during the record-breaking weekend. They went 12-16 with three homers in the game from Sunday.
"Those young guys at the bottom of the order gave us some great at-bats,” head coach, Dan Schoenrock said in the postgame presser.
Memphis will continue to build all the way around from batting to pitching and fielding as they travel east to Wilmington, N.C.
UNC Wilmington
UNC Wilmington is having its best season since two years ago when they won nine of their first 12 like they have so far this season. The Seahawks are currently on a three-game winning streak after sweeping the Kentucky Wildcats last weekend.
UNC Wilmington only allowed four runs all series long and controlled the series.
One standout player so far this season is junior righthander Landen Roupp. He tossed shutout innings in the series clinching game and earned him the Colonial Athletic Association Picher of the Week.
On the season, the Rocky Mount native is 3-0 on the season with 23 total strikeouts and allowed just three runs. Roupp is having an excellent season on the mound and Memphis will definitely see him at some point during the weekend.
Another guy to keep an eye on this weekend is Noah Bridges. The junior outfielder is batting .319 so far this season. He has 15 hits with eight runs scored, along with three RBI.
In the Kentucky series, it was a quartet of Kip Brandenburg, Trevor Marsh, Zachary Bridges and Brooks Baldwin that got the job done on offense.
UNC Wilmington have great pitching with Roupp, but the Seahawks will look for the quartet and Bridges (Noah) to bring the offense versus Memphis.
Overall
Memphis has a great test ahead of them this weekend. The offense has been great so far this season, and if Goodman, Baskin and others can bring those hot bats from the WIU weekend, the Tigers will have a chance.
The boys in blue will need to keep in mind that this Seahawks team is no joke. Tigers faced a great team in Ole Miss on Tuesday and got thumped. Time will tell to see how good this Memphis baseball team can really be.
The action will start on Friday at 3 p.m. then onto Saturday at 3 p.m. and conclude on Sunday at 12 p.m.
Hunter Goodman attempting to get the player out at first against Dayton on Feb. 22, 2020. The Tigers have their first road series of the year against UNC Wilmington this weekend.
