University of Richmond Athletics
Spiders Set To Play In Their Fourth-Straight A-10 Baseball Championship
05/22/2005 | Baseball
May 22, 2005
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Atlantic 10 Championships Bracket in PDF FormatDownload Free Acrobat Reader
Richmond (20-33) takes on Fordham (34-19) -- Atlantic 10 Championships -- May 25-28
Site: Fifth Third Field (7,230) - Dayton, Ohio
Game Times: Wednesday - 3:30 p.m., (Lose) Wednesday - 7 p.m., (Win) Thursday - 3:30 p.m.
Rankings: Richmond is not ranked. Fordham is not ranked.
Coaches: Richmond's Ron Atkins is 661-477-4 in his 21st season at Richmond and overall. Nick Restaino is 34-19 in his first season as interim head coach for the Rams and overall.
Pressbox Phone: N/A
Audio: Bob Black and Simon Gray will call every Spider game at the Atlantic 10 Championships. Broadcasts can be heard in the Richmond area on either WLEE-AM 990 or WTOX-AM 1480, contingent on game times.
Internet: Gametracker for every tournament game will be available at www.Atlantic10.org. Black and Gray's broadcasts can also be heard at either www.RichmondSpiders.com or www.radiorichmond.com.
Television: None
Tentative Richmond Starter
Wednesday: Rob Berzinskas, So., RHP (3-8, 3.86 ERA)
The Atlantic 10 Championships - First Round Game Against Fordham
Richmond baseball makes its fourth consecutive appearance in the Atlantic 10 Championships, Wednesday, May 25 when it faces the Fordham Rams (34-19) at Fifth Third Field in Dayton, Ohio. The Spiders (20-33), seeded sixth in the six-team field, will play the Rams, the tournament's third seed, in the second game of day scheduled for 3:30 p.m.
Richmond, which has been part of the A-10 Conference for four years now, is making its fourth appearance in the tournament. The Spiders, who finished the conference season with a mark of 12-12, have won two or more games in the Championships every year they have been there. Fordham, which finished third overall and second in the East Division (17-7), is making its second consecutive appearance in the Championships and just its third since qualifying for the NCAA Tournament in 1998.
Junior Greg Smith and senior Jeremy Bourgeois lead the Rams offensively, hitting .321 and .310, respectively. Bourgeois has power numbers of 10 homers, 39 RBI and a slugging percentage of .543. Smith can put the ball in play, striking out just eight times in 187 at-bats.
Freshman Cory Riordan leads the Ram starters with an ERA of 3.38 in 15 appearances and 12 starts. The righthander is limiting hitters to a .217 average and has struck out 62 in 82.2 innings.
The Spiders are limping into the tournament on a five-game losing streak, the second-longest of the season. Richmond dropped the final game of its series at Duquesne, then lost a midweek contest at Liberty before getting swept by Dayton to round out the regular season.
Freshman Joe Mahoney got a few pointers from former Spider alum Sean Casey prior to the Dayton series, and has gone 5-for-9 with a double and an RBI since.
Freshman Ryan Metzroth has been a mainstay in the lineup since breaking his 0-for-27 slump to start the season. The Agoura Hills, Calif., native has hit in seven of the last eight and nine of the last 11.
Zeskind Is On Another Roll
Good luck getting junior Ben Zeskind to go 0-for in a game. The Miami, Fla., native ended a season-long 14-game hit streak May 3 then began a six-game streak which ended May 15 against Duquesne. To date Zeskind has hit in 43 of the 49 games he has played.
He currently leads the team with an average of .361 which ranks seventh in the Atlantic 10. He also leads the team with a total of 20 multi-hit games. Fourteen of those 20 have come in the last 25 games he has played.
More info on Zeskind: Prior to the 14-game hit streak the switch-hitting outfielder ranked second on the team with a .326 average... Zeskind has gone hitless in only six games this season... He has failed to reach base in only two games this season... He has not gone hitless in two-straight this season and the last time he was hitless in two of three games was Feb. 27 - March 6.
Info From Around The Horn...
- Freshman Austin Reilly is one strike out away from equalling the single-season record for strike outs in a season. The Aledo, Texas, native has been sit down 51 times this season on strikes.
- Richmond's current losing streak of five games is the second-longest this season. Earlier the Spiders lost a record tying 10-straight from April 3-16.
- Richmond alum Sean Casey, along with his wife, Mandi, and two children, Jacob and Andrew, came to Dayton to watch the Spiders play Dayton Thursday, May 19. Due to rain the start of the series was pushed back and did not allow the Casey's to stay and watch. A four-hour rain delay sent the Spiders back to the bus, but before the team left the field, Casey gave Richmond first baseman freshman Joe Mahoney a hitting instruction in the driving rain. Since those instructions, Mahoney has gone 5-for-9 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored.
Lets Call Him "The Human Fan"
Sophomore Rob Berzinskas is quietly climbing the Richmond list for all-time strike outs in a season and career. The Clinton, Conn., native has fanned 95 thus far this season and 161 in his two-year career. Last season alone the right hander had just 66 punchouts. He ranks second among all A-10 pitchers this season with 95 and is only two punchouts behind first place.
Among the national leaders, Berzinskas ranked 26th with 10.9 strike outs per nine innings of work in the May 16 NCAA statistic release. Currently his SO/9 innings is at 11.1. Richmond's number one has tied and set career-best strike out marks four times this season. His most recent plateau, which tied a career-high set earlier this season, came against the Dukes of Duquesne, May 15, when he fanned 10 in 6.1 innings.
The Spiders Are In Again
Richmond has been part of the Atlantic 10 Conference four years and the Spider baseball squad has made an appearance in all four A-10 Championships dating back to the 2002 season. The Spiders are a combined 9-5 in tournament play, and have won the tournament once in the four-year stint (2003).
Head coach Ron Atkins guided the Spiders to a 3-2 mark in the 2002 tourney, placing second before eventually winning the Wake Forest NCAA Regional and participating in the school's first-ever NCAA Super Regional in Lincoln, Neb. The next season, 2003, the Spiders won the event, going 4-1, and took part in the Stanford NCAA Regional. Last season Richmond finished the Championships 2-2 and missed NCAA play for the first time in two years.
More Tourney Notes: The Spiders have never been seeded lower than third in the A-10 Championships prior to this season... Richmond has not finished lower than third in the league tournament... Ron Atkins' teams have won at least two games in the A-10 Championships in each of the three years... The Spiders are a combined 2-10 against the 2005 tourney field... Richmond has not faced Fordham this season, but picked up wins against Duquesne and George Washington... The Spiders were swept by both Dayton and Rhode Island.
We Get To Face Another Set Of Rams
Richmond will take on Fordham in Wednesday's second game of the Atlantic 10 Championships. The Spiders and Rams did not square off in a regular season series this season, but did play during the 2004 regular season.
The Spiders took the series 2-1 after the Rams won game one in the three-game set, 4-3. Richmond rallied with two 5-4 wins in the series played at the Spiders' Pitt Field, April 9-10.
Only seven of Richmond's current roster members faced the Rams last season, and two of those athletes, junior Alex Wotring and senior Jason Bolinski, are redshirting this season.
Sophomore Rob Berzinskas made a start in series, but did not get a decision. He worked 5.0 innings, allowed three runs on five hits and fanned six.
Atlantic 10 Championships Action Over the Airwaves
All Richmond Spiders baseball games in the Atlantic 10 Tournament May 25-28 will be broadcast on both radio and the internet.
The Radio Richmond group will serve as the local broadcast outlet and also provide live internet streaming. Spider games will be heard on either WLEE-AM 990 or WTOX-AM 1480, pending game times. Internet access will be available through either www.RichmondSpiders.com or www.radiorichmond.com.
The Spiders will open the tournament at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 25 and the game will be broadcast on WLEE-AM 990. Voice of the Spiders Bob Black and Director of Athletic Public Relations Simon Gray will call the action.
All game times and radio station information will be posted in advance on www.RichmondSpiders.com and will also be provided to the Richmond Times-Dispatch for publication in the daily "On-The-Air" listing in the sports section.
- WLEE-AM 990 will carry the following games in which the Spiders play: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11.
- WTOX-AM 1480 will carry the following games in which the Spiders play: 3, 6, 9, 10.
