March 24, 2003
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Georgia Tech, ranked second in the nation’s by Baseball America, hosts in-state rival Mercer at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at Russ Chandler Stadium. The game will be televised regionally by Comcast Sports Southeast (CSS, cable channel 45 in Atlanta). Live statistics for the game will be available on the internet at www.ramblinwreck.com.
Tuesday’s game will conclude the annual two-game series between Tech and Mercer. The Yellow Jackets defeated the Bears, 9-1, on Feb. 19 in Macon. Following Tuesday’s game, Georgia Tech will visit 13th-ranked Miami for a three-game weekend series in what will mark the first of three consecutive weekends on the road.
GEORGIA TECH UPDATE (20-2, 3-0 ACC)
Georgia Tech snapped a two-game losing streak with a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference sweep of Maryland last weekend at Russ Chandler Stadium. Tech’s 17-0 start to the season eclipsed the previous school record of a 16-0 start in 1987.
The Yellow Jackets snapped out of an offensive lull last weekend, scoring 45 runs on 48 hits in three games against the Terrapins. Tech’s team batting average has risen to .299, a high-water mark of the season. The Yellow Jackets have belted 36 home runs this season (averaging 1.64 per game after hitting 0.97 home runs per game in 2002). The team has been led by C Mike Nickeas (.367-5-22),1B Clifton Remole (.365-2-17), and LF Matt Murton (.333-6-20).
The Georgia Tech pitching staff owns a very respectable 2.94 team ERA, including six regular pitchers with ERA’s at 2.61 or lower. The ace of the Tech pitching staff is LHP Kyle Bakker (4-0, 3.58), while the bullpen owns a 2.41 ERA in 86 innings of work. Opponents are batting just .232 against Georgia Tech pitching this season.
MERCER UPDATE (9-17, 4-8 ATLANTIC SUN)
Mercer is currently 9-17 on the season after dropping two of three games at Troy State last weekend. The Bears are batting .273 as a team and own a team ERA of 6.85. Sophomore RHP Chris Bishop (1-4, 8.47) is scheduled to start on Tuesday night in what is expected to be a staff pitching day.
QUOTING DANNY HALL ON TUESDAY’S GAME AGAINST MERCER:
“We are playing a Division I team from our own state, so we always want to do well. I enjoy playing all the Division I teams in our state, and I am looking forward to getting Jason Neighborgall back on the mound.”
ON THE OFFENSIVE BREAKOUT LAST WEEKEND:
“We have been waiting quite a while to see that, and they players have been working very hard to get themselves going. We saw the result of a lot of hard work in practice. We all thought it was just a question of time before these guys started hitting and we scored a lot of runs, and we saw that over the weekend against Maryland.”
ON DIFFERENT CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE PITCHING STAFF:
“We have a lot of depth on our staff. Andrew Kown had a great fall and he has pitched very well thus far this season. We know what Chris Goodman and Brian Burks can do. We felt like we needed to put Burks in the starting rotation, and what allows us to do that is guys like Jeff Watchko, Aaron Walker and Micah Owings throwing well out of the bullpen. All of those things are encouraging.”
ON TECH’S UPCOMING SCHEDULE OF THREE STRAIGHT WEEKENDS ON THE ROAD:
“This is definitely the toughest stretch of our schedule, especially since we are going on the road all three weekends. Miami is rich in history and tradition, and that will be a big challenge for our team. I think we will also be able to learn a lot about our team. If you are going to do well nationally and in your league, you have to be able to go on the road and win some series. The Miami series will start that process for us and give us a lot of answers as to how mentally tough our team is.”
STARTING PITCHER NOTES
Tuesday: JASON NEIGHBORGALL (RHP) 2-0, 2.00 ERA
Highly heralded freshman Jason Neighborgall will get the starting nod on Tuesday night against Mercer. Neighborgall has spent the first three weeks of March as Tech’s No. 3 weekend starter before moving to the bullpen last weekend against Maryland.
Neighborgall will be making his fifth start and seventh appearance in 2003 on Tuesday night. He made his collegiate debut and his first career start on Feb. 19 at Mercer where he worked three shutout innings in a designated staff day in Tech’s 9-1 win. Neighborgall improved to 2-0 with a five-inning effort against George Washington (Mar. 2) when he allowed just one run.
Neighborgall’s last two starts have been plagued by control problems, however, as he has walked five batters in each of those two appearances – Mar. 9 vs Rutgers (5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 3 K) and Mar. 16 vs Kent State (3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 5 BB, 5 K).
The hard-throwing right hander, who has been clocked at or over 100 MPH on several occasions, regularly throws in the mid to upper 90’s. Touted as one of the top high school pitchers in the country last season, Neighborgall was a seventh-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox in 2002 but elected to enroll in Georgia Tech instead.
GEORGIA TECH VS. MERCER
GEORGIA TECH LEADS, 96-50
Georgia Tech leads Mercer, 96-50, in a series that dates to 1897. The Yellow Jackets hold a 55-22 edge in games played in Atlanta.
Tech has won 10 straight games against Mercer, and the Bears’ last win in the annual two-game, home and home series was a 13-9 win in Atlanta in 1998. The Yellow Jackets have averaged 14.8 runs per game in this current 10-game win streak over Mercer.
Georgia Tech defeated Mercer, 9-2, on Feb. 19 in Macon. Sophomore Brandon Boggs hit his first career home run in that game, while pitchers Jason Neighborgall, Kyle Schmidt, Andrew Kown and Nick Wagner combined on a 7-hitter.
Georgia Tech is 15-3 against Mercer under head coach Danny Hall.
THE BATS WARM UP
After hitting .275 as a team through the first 18 games of the season, Georgia Tech’s offense finally started to produce at a level that was expected in four games last week against Auburn and Maryland. The Yellow Jackets hit .391 (61-for-156) last week to raise their team batting average nearly 25 points to .299. Tech averaged 15 runs per game in three-game series with Maryland over the weekend, and the Yellow Jackets scored in 19 of their 24 innings at bat.
Tech’s current .299 team batting average is still a relative low figure considering the Yellow Jackets hit .330 in 2002, .347 in 2001 and .342 in 2000. In fact, Tech has never hit lower than .306 as a team since Danny Hall became the school’s head coach in 1994, and the Yellow Jackets have hit better than .320 as a team in seven of his nine years at the helm of the program.
VERSUS THE STATE OF GEORGIA
Georgia Tech is 4-0 against teams from the state of Georgia in 2003, and Tech posted a 13-1 mark against its in-state rivals during the 2002 season. Tech is 2-0 against Georgia Southern and 1-0 against both Mercer and Armstrong Atlantic State this year.
Since 1999, Georgia Tech owns a 46-8 (.852) record against its in-state foes. The Yellow Jackets are 88-25 (.779) against teams from Georgia in 10 years under head coach Danny Hall.
NICKEAS NAMED TO JOHNNY BENCH WATCH LIST
Sophomore catcher Mike Nickeas is one of 33 collegiate catchers named to the 2003 Johnny Bench Award watch list, an award given annually to the nation’s top collegiate catcher. The watch list will be narrowed down to 10 semifinalists, whom will be announced on May 20. Three finalists will be announced on June 2, prior to the College World Series.
HOME RUNS COMING AT BLISTERING PACE
Georgia Tech has hit 36 home runs as a team in 22 games in 2003, averaging 1.64 home runs per game. Last season Tech hit 66 home runs in 68 games (0.97 home runs per game). The school record for home runs is 119, which was accomplished in 65 games during the 1987 season (1.83 per game).
Listed below are Tech’s home run totals since the NCAA adopted the current bat rules for the 1999 season.
GEORGIA TECH'S YEARLY HOME RUN TOTALSYear Games HR HR per game1999 58 65 1.122000 66 79 1.202001 61 74 1.212002 68 66 0.972003 22 36 1.64
HOME, SWEET HOME
Georgia Tech has had great success at home in the history of Russ Chandler Stadium, winning better than 80% of its home games since the facility first opened in 1985. The Yellow Jackets are 13-2 at home in 2003.
Tech has been especially formidable at Russ Chandler Stadium over the last two seasons since the facility was torn down and rebuilt at a cost of $9.7 million. The Yellow Jackets won their first 22 games in their new ballpark in 2002, and Tech is 49-6 (.891) in the new Russ Chandler Stadium.
