Liberty : 12-15

Home : 6-4

Away: 5-9
Q1: 2-9
Q2: 1-1
Q3: 2-2
Q4: 7-3
RPI : 86
SOS : 48
ASUN : 4-5

Liberty lost 2 of 3 over the weekend at Lipscomb. Liberty lost a pair of 1 run ballgames on Friday & Saturday before bouncing back to salvage game 3 9 to 4 behind 6 2/3 from Tepper to go along with 13 strikeouts.  Mikey Tepper and Trey Carter both turned in stellar outings over the weekend.  Liberty's pitching staff may be turning the corner a bit as both Erickson & Edwards are coming off solid outings as well over the past couple weeks.  Freshman Brayden Horton has forced his way into the lineup and now leads the team in Batting Average at .319 and RBI's with 18 in just 47 at bats.  Jaylen Guy is hitting .295 with a homer and 13 RBI's in his best season with Liberty as well.  

The thought of an at large bid is on real life support for the 23 Flames.  Liberty will need to make a serious run the next couple weeks or they will be relegated to have to win the conference tournament to have postseason hopes.  The Flames just need to keep developing pitching and find out what these young guys like Hudson, Kepley, Grubbs & Horton can do.  So far they have shown this has the makings to be a great freshman class.  Liberty will turn to Todd Hudson for the midweek start against #7 UVA which will roll into Lynchburg with a 24 and 4 record.  UVA is just 6 and 4 in true road games so maybe the Flames can catch a hot start from Hudson and get some early offense and challenge UVA's loaded offense.  UVA leads the all time series 39-23 but Liberty is 14-10 against UVA in Lynchburg.  The last meeting saw the Flames fall 7-2 in Charlottesville almost one year to the date on April 6th of last year.  If the Flames can win it will break UVA's 16 and 0 mark in non-acc play this year.  The Hoos are coming off dropping the last 2 games of a 3 game set in Blacksburg against their bitter rival VT.  The Hoos are loaded on offense again with 6 hitters with an average over .329 including ACC POY candidate Kyle Teel who is hitting a smoldering .446 with 6 homers and 32 RBI's.  Team BA is .333 and team ERA is 3.17 which shows the Hoos are a very balanced team that will threaten to return to Omaha under long time skipper Brian O'Connor yet again.  Looks like UVA usually starts Early Connelly in the midweek.  He's provided some length in some games and in other games they have took the jonny whole staff approach which has been their approach in years past.  It keeps the opposition looking at a new arm.  Conversely, it's very challenging to have 5 or 6 guys all on their best nights.  

This weekend the Flames will welcome Central Arkansas in for 3 starting on Thursday night.  The Bears are 13 and 15 and just 2 and 8 on the road but they are 5-4 in ASUN play.  That record is aided by a 3 game sweep of winless North Alabama.  Beyond NAU the ASUN seems to be pretty evenly matched with Stetson, FGCU & Jacksonville State all tied at the top at 7 and 2.  If the Flames can find a way to steal one from UVA this should be a weekend that Liberty could get a much needed sweep and find a way to get above .500.  

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