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EVANSVILLE, Ind.—The University of Evansville baseball team will wrap up its 13-game season-opening road trip this week, as the Purple Aces will travel to Lexington, Kentucky to battle the nationally-ranked University of Kentucky Wildcats in a pair of mid-week contests. The Purple Aces and Wildcats will play non-conference contests on both Tuesday and Wednesday at Cliff Hagan Stadium in Lexington. Tuesday's start time has been moved up to 2:00 p.m. due to weather concerns, while Wednesday's game will start at 3:00 p.m. central time. Both games can be heard live on 91.5 F.M.-WUEV.
Evansville will be looking to end its road trip on a high note, as the Purple Aces currently stand at 3-8 on the road swing. UE was able to salvage the series finale of a three-game series at Samford on Sunday, 8-4, thanks to powering four home runs in the contest. On the season, Evansville has already launched 17 home runs as a team in just 11 games. Junior infielder Cody Fick and junior outfielder Greg Wallace currently lead UE’s power surge on offense with four home runs each.
Fick currently leads the Purple Aces offensively with a .383 average. He ranks among the Missouri Valley Conference’s leaders in batting average (10th-.383), home runs (T-1st-4) and RBI (2nd-16) entering this week’s action. Senior first baseman Tom Heithoff has hit safely in all eight games in which he has played in the field so far this year, while adding a .364 average, two home runs, and six RBI. Senior outfielder Alex Acheson also currently bats above .300 this year for UE at .323, and he leads the MVC by already being hit by eight pitches this season.
Kentucky, meanwhile, will enter this week’s series at 9-1 overall and ranked as high as 19th in the various collegiate baseball polls. The Wildcats won their first seven games of 2010, before preseason All-American Addison Reed and San Diego State shut down the UK offense to the tune of a 12-4 victory last Thursday in San Diego. Kentucky was able to bounce back though with an impressive 6-0 shut-out victory over west coast power San Diego on Friday, and a 14-13 victory over Monmouth on Saturday in which UK rallied for seven runs in the final three innings to pick up the win.
Senior outfielder Keenan Wiley currently leads the UK offense with a .400 average, a home run, and eight RBI, while junior infielder Chris Bisson (.378/2/10) and senior first baseman Gunner Glad (.343/0/9) also bat above .300 this year for the Wildcats. The UK pitching staff also currently boasts the current Southeastern Conference Pitcher of the Week in Logan Darnell (2-0, 2.57 ERA) and the current National Pitcher of the Week Matt Little (1-0, 0.82 ERA, 3 SVs).
“Kentucky has a very veteran ballclub and they have been playing extremely well in all three phases of the game so far this year,” said UE head coach Wes Carroll. “I’m sure that they’ll be hungry and ready to go on Tuesday to try and extract some revenge after we were able to beat them last year at their place.
“We really need to focus on getting back to the fundamentals on our end. We need to get back to playing good defense, throwing strikes on the mound, and battling in the batter’s box. We were able to do that on Sunday at Samford after really not doing that the first two games of the weekend. Hopefully, we can carry that over into these two games this week before we return home on Friday.”
Evansville leads the all-time series over Kentucky, 9-6, including posting an 11-7 victory over the Wildcats last April in Lexington, Kentucky.
