March 6, 2022

*Flames sweep CU

Liberty 10 -1

Liberty closed out another 3 game sweep in impressive fashion with a 14 to 5 win on Sunday.  The Flames outscored CU 32 to 9 in the series.  Excluding the Florida series Liberty has outscored their opponents 84 to 18 in the other 8 games this year.  Liberty has also run off 10 consecutive wins since losing the season opener to Barco and Florida.  Joe Adametz went 6 strong innings allowing just 1 unearned run Friday night en route to the win.  He continues to set the table for the weekend.  Flu & Hungate followed him to combine for 3 scoreless innings.  Saturday the offense took over as Gibson went 4 innings and allowed 2 earned runs.  Super Frosh Garrett Horn shined again in 4 innings while allowing just 1 run as he was throwing some serious smoke from the left side.  He sat 95-97 in his 4 innings.  He did throw 67 pitches which could make him unavailable for Tuesday's game against UNC.  Landon Riley threw a scoreless 9th.  Max Alba was pitching well until he ran in trouble in the 5th.  He finished with 4 1.3 inning and 5 earned runs.  Carter, Erickson, Miller & Beamon combined to shut CU out the rest of the game.  Carter was again sitting 94 to 96 and looks very impressive..  There were a lot of hit batsman over the weekend but particularly by CU.  Liberty hitters were showing a lot of frustration all weekend as CU continued to plunk our best guys regularly.  Thankfully we made it out without injury because there were several balls that looked to have some intent behind them.  Jake Lazzaro returned at SS this week after battling a glute strain that caused him to miss 4 games.  He had some good swings particularly to the opposite field.  I still think he will hit in time and at minimum get in the .300 OBP range which is just fine considering the level of defense he provides at a key spot.  Overall, Liberty overmatched the opponent for the second straight weekend.  

Takeaways 

Derek Orndorff aka Derek Dingers - Orndorff was busy smashing bombs and stealing bases this weekend  After 2 more Sunday he's now leading the nation at 10 in just 11 games.  Orndorff is hitting a sizzling .441 with 10 homers and 20 RBI's and slugging a mind boggling 1.324.  Oh and he's 6 for 6 in stolen base attempts and his fielding % is .1000.  He has 7 strikeouts, yeah 10 homers and 7 strikeouts.  34 Official AB's and 11 BB's and a .635 OBP.  Those are colossal numbers that speak for themselves.  Obviously, Orndorff is the early front runner for ASUN player of the year but he's in the running for the national player of the year with what he's doing.  

AA & Stephen Hill - Both of these guys are providing great at bats.  They have both heated up recently and are hitting .356 and .333 respectively.  Gray Betts has started to get it going as well and is up to .318.  Gulakowski has some clutch hits and has hit for power but we all know he has another gear (see the Knoxville regional).  Cam Foster had a tough last week from an average perspective but he got the job done in other ways this week.  He had a key sac fly and some great opposite field swings Friday night.  Keep betting on that kid, uber talented.  

Bullpen - These guys are a weapon for Coach Jackson.  Adametz has sured up the Friday night role and Hungate has locked down the closer role.  The bullpen is deep and talented and has a ton of different looks.  Gibson & Alba have flashed talent but Liberty will want a little more consistency in those Saturday and Sunday spots.  Stuff wise both are showing good secondary pitches from what I have seen.  The velo for both has been around 89-91 which is down just a shade for Gibby from last year when he was sitting 92-94. If the Flames can get those 2 to go 6 innings or so regularly this staff is going to reach it's full potential.  

Depth - Three Hillier has showed some good pop in his limited AB's and has looked good behind the plate in limited duty.  Peters played great defense and had a few hits in his 4 games filling in.  Majkowski is a vet that when healthy, Liberty has confidence in him to provide a potential lefty option from the OF.  Also we've seen Brady Gulakowski play some first base this weeks.  The Flames have some versatility that will come in handy in a 56 game season.  

Regional Host?: Jeff Barber and Jim Toman floated the idea of Liberty hosting a regional a decade ago.  At the time Worthington field was unable to host and could not even host conference tournaments as the Flames shipped down to Dan Daniel Park in Danville when they hosted the Big South Tournament.  Once Liberty Baseball stadium was built it was always a goal to host a regional.  It really only looked possible once before Liberty faded.  It's all on the table this year.  It's still early but we are 17% of the way through the regular season and Liberty is sitting at #7 in RPI and #20 in the polls.  The Flames will have a shot to not only host a regional but be national seed.  It's possible, Coastal has done it a number of times and look down in LA where our future conference rivals LA Tech hosted last year.  At this point it's just something to keep an eye on but Liberty has put itself in position thus far.  These midweek ACC matchups will be key as VT, UVA, Wake & UNC all have gaudy records and Duke is still highly ranked.   

Key Numbers: 

10 - straight Flames wins

66 - Flames run spread post Florida series (84 to 18)

7 - Liberty's standing in Warren Nolan RPI through 11 games.  (Florida won 2 of 3 vs Miami, huge)

39 - UNC RPI standing 

2.66 - Liberty team ERA

.987 - Liberty Fielding %

.279 - Liberty team batting average.  

On Deck

The midweek competition takes a huge step up as the Diamond Heels from UNC will make their way to Lynchburg for a top 25 showdown Tuesday afternoon @ 4 pm.  UNC is fresh off a sweep of our rival Coastal Carolina.  UNC is 11 and 1.  Their best wins were 2 of 3 against ECU and sweeping Coastal.  Liberty has had a decent amount of success against UNC the last few years.  This game will undoubtedly be a top 25 matchup.  I would expect both Liberty & UNC to be in the 15-18 range depending on the poll.  I typically refer to D1 Baseball as the most reliable and it had Liberty at 20 and UNC at 24 heading into this past week.  These 2 programs are very familiar with each other obviously as Scott Forbes took over for Carolina legend John Fox.  Scott Jackson spent a long period at UNC and brought Bryant Gaines with him to LU as the pitching coach before Forbes hired Gaines back to UNC prior to the 2020 season.  I would expect Dylan Cumming to get the nod for this big time matchup.  This weekend the Flames will get the return series from Scott Jackson's alma mater the Campbell Camels who took 2 of 3 from Liberty in Bues Creek to open the 2021 series.  Buckle up, it's a big week for Liberty.  

#Risewithus

Brent