Baseball Welcomes Arkansas

Baseball Welcomes Arkansas

4/7/2006

Vanderbilt looks to continue its successful start to the conference season this weekend as Arkansas comes to town for a three-game SEC series. The teams will open play Friday night at 6 p.m. at Hawkins Field and will continue on Saturday at 2 p.m. They will then close it out on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Arkansas got out to a hot start with a 16-1 record prior to opening SEC play at Florida three weeks ago. They are ranked as high as 10th in the polls this week with a 23-7 overall record and a 4-5 ledger in conference (tied for third in the Western Division).

Chris Hollensworth leads the team with a .389 batting average through 27 games, while Danny Hamblin is the top power source with eight homers and 40 RBI. As a team the Razorbacks are hitting .296 with 33 homers and 211 runs scored (7 per game) on the year.

The Commodores had a season high 18 hits in Sunday’s 16-2 win over Florida. It was Vanderbilt’s first series win over Florida since the 2003 season and the first in Gainesville since 1996. It is the most runs the team has scored against Florida in school history, besting the previous mark of 15 set in 1993 and 1994. It is also the worst home loss for the Gators since the 1990 campaign.

The team continues to win with youth as eight of the nine position starters are underclassmen (6 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen) and two of the three weekend starting pitchers are sophomores (David Price and Cody Crowell).

The Commodores hit .309 as a team last week and have bumped their overall team average to .286. The freshman duo of first baseman Ryan Flaherty and Pedro Alvarez have propelled the Commodore offense. Flaherty was 7-for-12 (.583) with two doubles, five RBI and five runs scored on the week and leads the team with a .373 batting average. Alvarez went 8-for-15 (.533) with two doubles, a homer and nine runs scored from the two-spot in the batting order.

All-American and SEC Pitcher of the Year candidate David Price threw eight innings of shutout baseball in the Commodores 6-0 win on Friday over Florida. He struck out 13 and now is 3-0 in the SEC with a 0.38 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 24.0 innings. He has not allowed a run in 19.1 innings pitched.