Alcorn Game Notes
LORMAN, Miss. – The Alcorn State University baseball program will play its third, fourth and fifth home games of the season this weekend as it welcomes the Delta Devils to town. The Braves have started 2019 as road warriors, playing 17 of its first 19 ballgames away from Willie E. "Rat" McGowan Stadium.
Alcorn (6-13, 1-4 SWAC) has been one of the best in the conference in terms of limiting mistakes in the field as its .955 fielding percentage trails only Southern among SWAC schools. The purple and gold as a unit are in the upper half of the league in hits allowed per nine innings (11.18), homers (10), runs per game (5.8), strikeouts per nine innings pitched (7.1) and triples (6).
Senior starting pitcher
Carlos Lopez enters the game ranked fourth all-time in school history in career strikeouts with 199. He needs 21 more to break Steve Easter's mark of 219 set in 2012 after he tossed 4 in the win over Prairie View on Friday. He has totaled 27 punchouts in 29.1 innings of work in 2019 and will move into third place with five more strikeouts.
Junior
Travaris Cole leads the Braves in batting average (.371), hits (26), RBIs (20), total bases (44), slugging percentage (.629) and home runs (4) while placing second among Alcorn hitters in runs scored (13) and doubles (4). Cole has ten multi-hit games, five multi-RBI games and had a massive two-homer, five-RBI game in a 12-1 win over Prairie View on March 16.
The Southwest Mississippi Community College transfer has been the Braves' most reliable offensive threat in his first season, as he currently is top-five in the SWAC for batting average, hits per game (1.44), homers, RBIs per game (1.11) and slugging percentage.
Freshman
Tristin Garcia has been a revelation for Alcorn, placing second in average (.338), doubles (4), RBIs (13) and hits (23). He is currently riding a ten-game hitting streak and reached base safely in 15 consecutive games.
Three separate Braves have on-base streaks of five or more as senior
Kirt Cormier fronts the pack (18), followed by
Tristin Garcia (15), and junior
Brandon Rembert (9). Garcia and Cormier boast hit streaks of 10 and 9, respectively while Rembert, junior
Micah Walker and freshman
Jaden Smith each have six-game streaks going.
Senior
Brandon Barna is 7 hits away from 100 in his career. He'd become the 48th player in school history to reach that milestone. Barna is tops among Braves hitters in doubles (5) and triples (2) while being in the top third for RBIs (11) and hits (19).
Redshirt junior closer
Austin Atwood has put the finishing touches on a majority team's six victories, as he's second in the SWAC with four saves.
Mississippi Valley State (2-8, 2-4) was pegged to finish fifth in the SWAC East Division.
The Delta Devils have played significantly less games than most of its SWAC counterparts due to cancellations and have not done well on the mound as they've given up ten runs or more in seven of its completed contests.
Frederick Spencer II is MVSU's primary producer with the stick, slashing .375 / .406 / .474 to go along with a team-high 12 hits. Alcorn catchers will have to be aware when Morgan Lomax is on-base, as he's accumulated five steals in ten games.
On the hill, starting pitcher Nicholas Johnson paces the rotation with a 3.00 ERA in four starts but bullpen arm Aaron Barkley has been the stopper, making five appearances with 12 strikeouts, six hits allowed, and a 0.90 ERA over 10.0 innings.
Alcorn and Mississippi Valley split six meetings during the 2018 season with both teams taking two-of-three on the road.
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