WILLIAMSBURG, VA.- William & Mary baseball is headed to Charleston this weekend to face CAA competition for the first time since May of 2019. The Tribe (1-6) will visit the Cougars (3-8) for a Friday 4:00 p.m. tilt before wrapping up the weekend with a Saturday doubleheader beginning at 2:00 p.m.
The two teams have played one another closely in the past as William & Mary trails College of Charleston 14-10 in the all-time series. The Tribe trails 8-10 since the two programs joined the same league and Charleston owns an 8-3 advantage at home. In 2019 the Tribe bested the Cougars 4-3 in the season series as each team earned a sweep on their home field and W&M outlasted Charleston 1-0 in 14 innings in the CAA Tournament.
Despite recording 17 strikeouts and retiring 12 straight batters between the second and fifth innings and nine straight to end the ballgame, the Tribe fell 8-2 to Old Dominion Wednesday night at Plumeri Park. College of Charleston is also hunting for wins after losing seven of their last eight contests, most recently a mid-week 3-2 decision at Campbell.
Wade Strain will toss game one for the Tribe. The graduate student is the reigning CAA Pitcher of the Week following a win over George Mason in which he allowed zero runs and just six hits over 7.0 innings. Strain has allowed just a single run in his past 11.1 innings on the mound.
Zack Tsakounis will make the start in game one of Saturday's doubleheader. It will be the lefty's first start on the mound since his CAA All-Rookie campaign in 2019.
Ben Greenspon will bring his stingy 2.38 ERA into Saturday evening's series finale.
Wednesday's loss to ODU saw a trio of W&M players extend streaks as
Matt McDermott and
Ben Williamson both recorded a hit for the third straight game.
David Hogarth would get a single and later walk to extend his on-base streak to six ballgames. McDermott also swiped his second base of the season Wednesday evening.
Garrett Newsome and
Brody Mack were dynamic out of the pen Wednesday evening retiring all 14 batters that the duo combined to face. Newsome struck out four over 2.2 innings of work, and Mack finished the game striking out three of six batters over a clean 2.0 innings.
