Liberty : 22-12

ASUN : 9-6

Warren Nolan RPI : 37

Quad 1 Record : 5-5

Quad 2 Record : 4-1


Liberty dropped the midweek game in a 10-6 slugfest vs Virginia Tech.  Then the Flames took 2 of 3 on the road from the ASUN East leading Kennesaw State Owls.  Liberty won big in Games 1 and 2 by a combined score of 27-5.  Garrett Horn went 6 innings and had 9 strikeouts again in route to the win Friday night.  Anderson, Orndorff, Foster & Keeter all had 2 RBI's each.  Keeter, Hill & Anderson all had 2 hits a piece on Friday.  Trey Carter pitched the final 3 innings of the game allowing 1 ER which would lower his ERA to 2.25.  Horn's ERA is down to 1.62 after his start.  Weather push the Flames and Owls into a DH on Saturday.  Liberty rang the bell early and often and had an 8 to 0 lead after the first inning.  Dylan Cumming went all 7 innings of the DH 10 run rule game in route to lowering his ERA to 2.92.  Offensively, Betts and Anderson each had 4 hits and Betts had 5 RBI including a HR.  Drew Baughman went 1 for 3 with a HR 3 runs scored and 2 RBI's in his first extended work of the year.  Mathieu, Hiller & Keeter all chipped in 2 hits as well.  After crushing KSU in the first 2 games the Flames could smell the sweep as they got out to a 5 to 1 lead after a 2 run PH Gulakowski homerun.  Betts had added another solo HR to lead off the game.  The Flames were feeling good as they brought on ever reliable Mason Fluharty to relive Joe Adametz after 4 1/3 innings.  Fluharty would get out of the jam in the 5th.  Fluharty would get tagged for 7 earned runs in parts of the next 2 innings leaving Fluharty and the Flames stunned.  Liberty would fight back to tie the game at 8 in the late innings before being walked off 9 to 8 in the bottom of the 8th.  

ASUN: 

Conference play was totally flipped upside down the last 2 or 3 weeks.  Liberty was firing on all cylinders heading into conference play before stumbling out of the gate and Jacksonville State got off to a hot start in the West.  FGCU got hit before cratering and settling into the middle of the pack after losing 5 of their last 6.  Lipscomb got off to a 0 and 5 start before ripping off 10 straight ASUN wins to finish 10 and 5.  Bellarmine and North Alabama are clearly the bottom 2 teams in the conference.  Surprisingly, the rest is a pretty jumbled up mess heading into the second half.  KSU came on and really surprised a lot of folks as they sit at #17 in the RPI at the midpoint.  I still think Liberty is the best team in the ASUN and will land on top when the dust settles.  The Flames will also bring Jacksonville and KSU to Lynchburg this go around.  Jacksonville always plays the Flames difficult and have never made it to Lynchburg and KSU is the next most talented team behind the Flames.  Lipscomb and JSU appear to be the best teams in the West.  That side of the bracket will continue to feast on Bellarmine and North Alabama so you can't just look at the records.  

Key takeaways:

Starting Pitching - The Flames starting pitching has taken off the last 2 weeks and the results have been much more in line with what the Flames expect.  

New Infield : Overall, it appears the Flames have improved their defense.  Keeter really hit the ball well and was on base all weekend.  Hill and Foster have been productive offensive pieces all year.  For this to work Foster & Hill will have to continue to improve defensively at those positions. 

Homers - The longball returned down in KSU and the Flames liked the results.  Liberty's offense has been at it's best this year when the ball is flying out of the ballpark.   I'm sure the Flames would like to be a little less dependent on the homer but right now it's been a key part of their success and it's become a huge part of college baseball again just like the mid 90's.  

On Deck : 

Liberty will welcome the 16 and 20 Duke Blue Devils into Lynchburg fresh off a 3 game sweep of #9 Notre Dame.  Prior to the weekend the Blue Devils had really been struggling the last few weeks including a 9 to 2 loss to the Flames a couple weeks back in the mid-week.  Duke is just 2 and 7 in true road games on the year and is #108 in the RPI headed into the week.  Next up, the Flames will welcome North Florida to Lynchburg to kick off the second half of conference play.  North Florida is 15 and 22 and just took 2 of 3 from FGCU.  They have pretty much been a mixed bag all year.  The Ospreys sit at #134 in the RPI.  If the Flames continue to get good starting pitching this is a great opportunity to go 4 and 0 and create some space in the W-L spread.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2023 Incoming Class Reese Mooney -  Mooney Came on Flames Nation's radar from Football first.  He was originally committed to Vanderbilt to play QB but wanted to give both sports a shot.  Depending on the publication, he's currently the top rated recruit in the football class with a .87 ranking on 247 sports He had over 30 football scholarship offers in Football.  Mooney is a SS/3B and won 1st team all district,  Mooney hit .342 with a .470 OBP including 9 doubles 3 triples, a homer and was 13-14 in Stolen Bases (our future QB can run a bit).  Mooney was rated the number 2 overall 3rd basemen in the state of Louisiana.  At one time, Mooney had committed to Houston to play baseball before it became clear he could play both sports at the D1 level.   Brian Mclellin - The Flames recently picked up a commitment from Mclellin who was the starting SS at JUCO San Joaquin Delta where he hit ,358 with 3 homers and 35 RBI's to go along with 11 stolen bases.  Mclellin originally sign
Read more
  2024 Signees Liberty is expecting 10 NLI's tomorrow which consists of Juco & HS signees.  Macaddin Dye was originally a 2024 class member but he's already on campus and had a big fall and looks like he could factor into the mix.  You can look at the type of pitchers that Coach Robinson has targeted and really quickly see a bit of a philosophical shift to well built power right handed arms.  No surprise there as Campbell rolled a bunch of those guys through the program the last 5 years.  There are still plenty of different looks in the staff but this could be a good indicator of what the future holds.  Overall, the class is filled with big physical older players that will supplement a very young and athletic roster to go along with wiry athletes like Black & Early.   Sawyer Black  - Black is a 6'1 185 2B/OF prospect that hails from just over the VA border in Oak Ridge NC.  Liberty has snagged several players from Wesleyan over the years.  Black is a toolsy left han
Read more
  The weather has turned a bit and Opening week is here.  Liberty Baseball has been ready to turn the page for quite a while on what proved to be one of the more disappointing seasons in 2023 in the programs history.  Very little went right in 2023 other than the development of a young core that the Flames could build around along with a handful of veterans.  The offseason also saw quite a few changes including the departure of both assistant coaches in Tyler Cannon and Matt Williams.  However,  as usual the Flames reloaded with Tyler Robinson from Campbell and former Flames SS Matt Williams who had spent the last several years as a scout following a successful MILB career with the St. Louis Cardinals.  Head Coach Scott Jackson moved quickly to get his top target in each situation.  Robinson's name has really exploded onto the seen with the development of power arms like Cade Kuehler and Thomas Harrington among others.  Williams had been a slick fielding SS that Coach Jackson was i
Read more