FROM PRESS RELEASES

James Madison 6 Hofstra 2

Hempstead, NY- Justin Wood pitched a complete game, allowing only four hits and striking out six to lead James Madison past Hofstra in game two of a Colonial Athletic Association series Saturday afternoon. Trevor Knight had two RBI for the Dukes while Matt Prokopowicz contributed a single and a run scored for the Pride. Hofstra falls to 8-18 (0-11 CAA) while James Madison improves to (18-7, 11-3 CAA). Read the rest of this entry »

Hofstra 12 Coppin State 3

Hempstead, NY- Hofstra scored three or more runs in the first three innings during which Matt Kougasian had four RBI and Nick Panzarella had three RBI as the Pride defeated Coppin State, 12-3, Wednesday afternoon. With the victory the Pride improve to 8-16 while the Eagles fall to 3-23.

Hofstra jumped out to a three-run lead in the first inning. After the first three runners reached base for the Pride, Kougasian drove a run home with a sacrifice fly for the first run. One batter later Panzarella delivered Hofstra’s only hit of the inning to bring home two and increase the lead to 3-0. Read the rest of this entry »

Miami (FL) 10 Bethune-Cookman 5

Miami Recap
Bethune-Cookman Recap Read the rest of this entry »

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES

College of Charleston 8 Davidson 6

Michael Kohn broke a ninth inning tie with an RBI double and Brandon Sizemore homered and collected four hits lifting the College of Charleston to an 8-6 win at Davidson and a sweep of its three-game Southern Conference baseball series at Wilson Field on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

Oklahoma 6 USF 1

TAMPA, Fla. — Sophomore Chase Anderson struck out six batters and junior Trey Sperring had three RBIs in Oklahoma’s 6-1 victory on Tuesday over South Florida at Red McEwen field. The win improved the Sooners’ overall record to 16-5 while the Bulls fell to 10-7.

In his fourth start of the year, Anderson delivered his best outing as a Sooner, striking out a season-high six batters. Anderson (2-1), who struggled in his last start allowing four runs in 1 1/3 innings against Washington State, limited the Bulls’ offense on Tuesday to one run off five hits and two walks. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES
HARRISONBURG, Va., March 16, 2008 – James Madison University scored eight runs in the first inning and cruised to a 16-1 victory over Towson to complete a Colonial Athletic Association series sweep on Sunday afternoon at Long Field/Mauck Stadium.

JMU won its ninth game in a row to improve to 13-3 overall and 8-1 in the CAA. The Dukes have compiled their best record through 16 games since the 1988 team opened 13-1-2. The winning streak is the longest since winning 16 in a row early in the 2006 campaign. Towson fell to 5-10 overall and 0-6 in the CAA. The Dukes are now 37-28 all-time against the Tigers. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE

Alabama 9 Samford 5

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - University of Alabama senior first baseman Matt Bentley slammed two home runs, including a solo blast in the fifth inning that gave the Crimson Tide the lead for good, in a 9-5 win over the Samford Bulldogs Wednesday night at Sewell-Thomas Stadium.

Bentley went 2-for-4 with two home runs and three RBI in leading the Crimson Tide to its sixth straight win. Bentley gave the Tide the lead for good with a two-out, solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning off losing pitcher Michael Jarry. Bentley slammed a two-run home run with two outs in the third inning to give Alabama a 4-3 lead. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASES

James Madison 10 Va Tech 3

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 11, 2008 - James Madison University led from start to finish and put five runs on the board in the ninth inning to pull away from Virginia Tech for a 10-3 non-conference baseball win Tuesday afternoon at English Field.

JMU improved to 9-3 overall and won its fifth in a row for the first time since late in the 2006 season. It is the first five-game winning streak of entirely road games since 1995. VT dropped to 7-7 for the season. The Dukes won their third straight game at English Field with the last loss in 1998. They improved to 30-20 all-time against the Hokies, including five wins in a row and a 12-3 mark since that loss in 1998. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASES

JMU 8 Georgia State 3

PANTHERSVILLE, Ga., March 9, 2008 - James Madison University took command with a six-run fourth inning and sophomore Kyle Hoffman (Reading, Pa./Twin Valley) pitched eight innings in an 8-3 victory to complete a Colonial Athletic Association sweep of Georgia State University on Sunday afternoon at The Field at Panthersville. Read the rest of this entry »

Northeastern 5 Bowling Green 0

Sophomore Sheldon McDonald threw eight shutout innings of five-hit, nine-strikeout ball and did not walk a batter, as he led the Huskies to a 5-0 win over the Western Michigan Broncos on Wednesday afternoon at IMG Academies in BRadenton, Fla. Western Michigan entered the game having scored at least 15 runs in three of its last five games, but McDonald kept the Bronco bats silent all afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Old Dominion is the overwhelming favorite to capture the CAA baseball championship in 2008 according to a vote of the league’s head baseball coaches.

The Monarchs finished atop the poll with 99 points and received nine of a possible 10 first-place votes since coaches weren’t allowed to rank their own teams. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
HARRISONBURG, Va., Nov. 29, 2007 – James Madison University baseball head coach Joe “Spanky” McFarland announced the signing of three high school athletes and a junior college player who will join the Dukes for the 2008-09 school year.

“We’ve had two highly-ranked recruiting classes in a row,” commented McFarland, who is entering his 11th season with the Dukes. “This class is small, but we’re trying to fill in some key holes from what’s left of the last two classes. We needed to add a catcher, and of course you need pitching every year. Plus there’s always a chance we lose a few guys in the draft and we have to prepare for that. As far as hitting, the catcher is a left-handed hitter and the outfielder is a switch hitter so that helps us out. Basically, we’re just trying to fill in the pieces to the puzzle to add to the last two classes.” Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
HARRISONBURG, Va., Oct. 3, 2007 – Seven home dates to open the season and the usual 30-game Colonial Athletic Association slate highlight the 2008 James Madison University baseball schedule announced Wednesday by 11th-year head coach Spanky McFarland.

“It’s not one of our strongest schedules, but there were a lot of factors that went into that,” McFarland commented. “With starting conference play against William & Mary on the second weekend, we lost a big travel weekend opportunity. Then there are some schools we’ve played regularly that weren’t able to fit us in their schedule this year. We also have a young team that didn’t make the conference tournament last year, so we wanted to focus on building confidence and making the tournament this year.”

The 2008 season is the first for the new uniform start date for baseball in NCAA Division I. Beginning this season, no team can begin play prior to Friday, February 22. The Dukes open the season that weekend, February 23 and 24, with a doubleheader against Binghamton on Saturday and a single game on Sunday.

“The new rule doesn’t affect us too much because of where we’re located. This was a compromise between some of the northern conferences that wanted to start in March and the southern schools that used to start in January. Our schedule is really about the same. It will be interesting to see how it affects the southern schools that can’t spread their games out like they used to and will need more pitching. I expect that we won’t see as many 40-win teams in the nation. It also gives more validity to the national polls with everyone starting on the same date.”

With 10 weekends necessary to play 30 conference games, JMU will begin CAA play in the second weekend with a three-game home series against William & Mary. Other home CAA series include Towson, Delaware, VCU, and UNC Wilmington.

The Dukes will have three of their longest CAA road trips all in one season with series at Georgia State, Hofstra, and Northeastern. JMU will also have series at Old Dominion on Easter weekend and at George Mason. The Atlanta and Boston trips will be extended with each opened by single games at Tennessee and Marist respectively. UT is entering its first season with former JMU assistant Todd Raleigh as head coach.

JMU’s schedule will also feature traditional home and away dates against Virginia Tech and George Washington. The Dukes will face in-state opponents Longwood and Radford four times each, splitting time home and away, while facing Liberty three times, including twice on the road. One-time opponents include a home date with Stony Brook and a road game at East Tennessee State that follows a weekend at Radford.

JMU is currently planning a new baseball facility to be located at Memorial Hall on South High Street (route 42). While the exact completion date has not been determined, the 2008 campaign could be the final season of JMU baseball at Long Field/Mauck Stadium. The Dukes are 658-218-4 all-time in the facility that opened in 1980.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
HARRISONBURG, Va., Sept. 25, 2007 – For the second straight season, James Madison University was included in Collegiate Baseball newspaper’s list of the top baseball recruiting classes in the nation for the 2008 season.

The newspaper ranked the top 40 classes and then listed 60 other top programs in the nation. It was the second straight season that the Dukes were the only Colonial Athletic Association team to appear in the listing.

With JMU in the midst of fall workouts, head coach Joe “Spanky” McFarland commented, “We feel really good about this class. There are some quality arms out there and we feel good about what this class will bring to the table. We had three hitters win freshman All-American awards last year. This year’s class was a little pitching heavy to try to match up some good arms with the good hitters we added last year.”

Altogether nine freshmen will join the mix in 2008, including six pitchers. The new arms include three right-handed pitchers and three lefties, which should add versatility to both the rotation and the bullpen. Several have displayed the arm strength in workouts to compete on the collegiate level with a few already displaying the power to top 90 miles per hour.

The right-handed pitchers include J.C. Menna (Tinton Falls, N.J./Red Bank Catholic), Kevin Munson (Roanoke, Va./Cave Spring), and Turner Phelps (Roanoke, Va./Lord Botetourt). The southpaws consist of John Mincone (Dix Hills, N.Y./Half Hollow Hills East), Alex Valadja (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Catholic), and James Weiner (Charlottesville, Va./St. Anne’s-Belfield). A seventh pitcher, redshirt freshman Trevor Knight (Charlottesville, Va./St. Anne’s-Belfield) was expected to be JMU’s closer a year ago before missing the season with an injury.

The Dukes have also added three infielders in David Herbek (Haymarket, Va./Battlefield), McKinnon Langston (Tallahassee, Fla./North Florida Christian), and Alex Oliver (Lebanon, N.J./North Hunterdon). In addition, Menna could also factor into the mix in the infield and Munson could see time behind the plate at catcher.

McFarland added, “Last year ended with Kurt Houck, Justin Wood, and Kyle Hoffman in the rotation. Those three have weekend experience, but several of these young guys will compete for those spots. All of the pitchers are pushing each other right now, which makes it fun. This group of freshmen is probably the best stable of arms as far as pure arm strength that we’ve had since the early 2000s when we had guys like Jared Doyle, Dan Meyer, Chris Cochran, Mike Trussell, and Adam Wynegar.”

The 2008 JMU squad will be young with 10 freshmen and 10 sophomores, including players who have redshirted. They will be joined by six juniors and just three seniors. The Dukes went 22-31 last year and finished in ninth place among 11 teams in the CAA with an 11-17 record.

As far as having the top class in the CAA for the second straight season, McFarland said, “Baseball goes in cycles at this level. I think that we’re reaping some benefits of winning the CAA regular season two years ago. I also think the idea that we’re getting a new stadium has added to the interest in our program as well. Coach [Jay] Sullenger heads up our recruiting and he has done a nice job.”

Five Cavaliers Named to 2007 VaSID All-State Baseball Team