The Ohio State baseball team (2-3) is headed back to the warmer half of the country today, this time to Jacksonville, Fla. to compete in the Kennel Club Classic at the University of Jacksonville.
The Buckeyes’ first opponent in the tournament is North Florida, the defending Peach Belt Conference champions. The game will take place at 1 p.m. Friday in Jacksonville’s Harmon Stadium.
The Ospreys (13-6), ranked No. 12 in the latest college baseball Division II poll, are currently riding a 5-game winning streak.
“North Florida is an outstanding ball club,” OSU coach Bob Todd said. “Two or three years ago they finished second in the country, and they’re now one of the best teams in the state of Florida.”
The Ospreys are led at the plate by a pair of senior infielders, John Skorupski and Marion Knowles.
Skorupski is leading the team, batting .343 (24-for-70), swatting five home runs and collecting 17 RBIs. Two of Skorupski’s home runs came during the teams last game against Michigan State (3-2), which UNF won in a slugfest 12-4.
Knowles’ numbers are similar to Skorupski’s, batting .333 (22-for-66) with four home runs and 17 RBIs.
UNF is just as talented in its pitching staff, led by sophomore hurlers Colin Fender and Josh Papelbon.
Fender is 4-0 on the season, giving up only two runs on 16 hits with three walks , 22 strikeouts and a 0.96 earned run average. Papelbon (1-1), UNF’s closer, has an impressive 0.40 ERA and a team high six saves.
The all-time series between OSU and UNF is even at two a piece, as the Ospreys evened the series up last March by shutting out the Buckeyes 8-0.
Saturday, the Buckeyes will take on Bradley (6-2) at 3 p.m. and Rider (0-4) at 7 p.m. to conclude the tournament.
“Bradley has already played eight games and Rider is a very, very good opponent out of the East,” Todd said. “So again, it doesn’t get any easier for us.”
Bradley currently has a 6-game win streak after losing its opening two games.
The Braves are led by sophomore outfielder Paul Rice, who was named last week’s Missouri Valley Baseball Player of the Week for his 10-for-12 (.833) performance at the plate.
For the season, Rice is 16-for-29 (.552) with one home run and six RBI’s.
Seniors Brad Canada, first baseman, and Joe Napoli, infielder, are also having a great start to the season.
Canada is batting .435 (10-23) with four RBIs and Napoli is hitting .333 (8-24) with a team high seven RBIs.
Junior pitchers Collin Walker (2-0) and Brandon Magee (2-1) anchor the Braves’ rotation as the two have ERAs of 2.57 and 2.66, respectively.
Bradley won the only meeting between them and OSU 8-1 March 18, 1995.
OSU will wrap up the Classic when it takes on Rider, who has lost its opening four games and has had its last three games canceled due to either snow or rain.
Like the Buckeyes, the Broncs have not had much playing time.
Rider has scored only 10 runs in the four games it has played and the pitching staff has a combined 12.41 ERA in 29 innings.
The Broncs’ offensive power has been coming from junior infielder Tom Letizia who is batting .364 in his 11 at-bats.
The Buckeyes are hoping to bounce back from their last tournament, where the team upset No. 4 North Carolina, but lost to No. 7 Georgia and Arizona State.
OSU pitchers are off to a great start, but they have not been getting much help from their offense.
“I don’t think any of those teams, come the end of the year, can beat us,” sophomore outfielder Wes Schirtzinger said. “I really feel that we competed with all of them. It’s just a matter of our hitters getting into the swing of things.”
If things go as expected, a big piece of the team’s offense, senior outfielder Steve Caravati, should be back in the lineup after recovering from a hamstring injury, which has sidelined Caravati for the past four games.
“It feels great,” Caravati said about his leg. “I’ve been doing a lot of strenuous rehab the past week and it just feels that each day it’s getting 10, 20 percent better. So it’s probably about 85 to 90 percent right now.”
