The Final Homestand
5/8/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 8, 2009
ASun.TV | Gametracker (Saturday - Game One) | Gametracker (Saturday - Game Two) | Gametracker (Sunday)
Complete Game Notes in PDF Format 
SPARTANBURG, S.C. - This season, the USC Upstate baseball team has beaten SEC school Tennessee, a team that was receiving votes in a national poll in Charlotte and crosstown rival Wofford. Those wins were similar in significance to the Spartans' 12-5 win over North Florida on March 21, 2008. It was Upstate's first win against North Florida in school history. In a series that is 25 games old now, the Spartans will head into a three-game Atlantic Sun Conference set against the Ospreys looking for their first series win ever against the Jacksonville school.
Head coach Matt Fincher and UNF coach Dusty Rhodes know each other well, having spent eight years together in the Peach Belt Conference before UNF moved to the A-Sun in 2006, with the Ospreys winning 22 meetings. The two schools and coaches were reunited in 2008 with Upstate's move to the A-Sun and the Spartans immediately ended the Ospreys' dominance with the 12-5 win, led by a 3-for-5, three-run game from Blake Green. Jimmy Tanner also had three hits in the game.
Quick Hits
•Senior Phillip Morgan is on a Division I-era record 17-game hitting streak. In that time, he is hitting .444 (32-for-72) with eight doubles, 11 runs and 20 RBI. Morgan's hitting streak is the longest since Bret Hansen hit in 17 straight from March 17 to April 14, 2007.
• In his last six outings, junior Teddy Fallon has a 1-0 record with a save and a 3.18 ERA in 17 innings out of the pen. The Florida fireballer has struck out 17 and walked nine during that stretch.
• Senior Eric Guillen has posted six hits in the last three games and currently needs just one hit to move into the top 10 in school history, tying Jason Westbrook (1993-95) with 179 career hits.
• In his last 16 games, junior Ryan Wilkins has raised his batting average from .077 to .315 by going 22-for-60 (.366) with 18 runs and 13 RBI. Wilkins is currently tied for fifth in the A-Sun with three triples.
• Freshman Austin Moyer has walked six times in his last two games in the lineup. He still managed to go 2-for-4 with a double, a triple and three RBI at the plate.
• Sophomore Keith Bisgounis is 7-for-12 with four runs, two doubles and two RBI in the last three games.
• Redshirt freshman/academic junior Matt Bertino was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society on Monday night. The honor society is considered one of the most prestigious in academia.
• The Spartans will honor their six seniors, Eric Guillen, Dennis McCraney, Kyle Simpson, Phillip Morgan, Phillip Myers and Tommy Shovlin with a Senior Day ceremony before Sunday's game with North Florida.
Streaking
How impressive is senior Phillip Morgan's current 17-game hitting streak? To start, it is the longest hitting streak for the Spartans since Bret Hansen finished his career on a 17-game streak in 2007. The only hitting streaks longer than Morgan's in the last 10 seasons have been Tim Gray's 19-game streak in 2003 and Chris Nowak's 27-game hitting streak in 2002.
Even more impressive is that Morgan was headlong in a slump that saw his average dip to .232 before his hitting streak started on April 7 at Wake Forest. Against Florida Gulf Coast, Morgan had six hits in 13 at bats, including a three-hit, two-RBI game on April 25. He was 4-for-4 with two runs and an RBI at Kennesaw State to lead the Spartans to a 7-5 victory on April 12. He was 2-for-5 with two doubles and three RBI in the win over Presbyterian on April 8. In addition, he started the streak by going 4-for-6 with a career-high six RBI at Wake Forest and missed hitting for the cycle by a triple. During a three-game set with ETSU, Morgan blasted seven hits.
Morgan is hitting .444 with 32 hits, eight doubles, a home run, 20 RBI and 11 runs overall in the last 17 games. For the season, he is hitting .315 with a team-high 15 doubles and 34 RBI.
Record Punchout Pace
Junior Matt Branham will enter his Sunday start against North Florida needing just 11 strikeouts to break Upstate's single-season record of 80, set by Michael Stone in 2000. Branham, who entered the year with 96 strikeouts in 150 innings, has been dominant at times this year, having racked up 69 Ks in 68 innings.
With his first of five strikeouts against ETSU on April 17, he became the sixth pitcher in school history to reach 150 career strikeouts. He moved into the top five in career punchouts with his next of five strikeouts on the night and he is currently fourth in school history with 165 strikeouts.
Branham has struck out five or more batters in nine of his 11 starts this year, including a career-high 11 at Jacksonville on March 27.
California Dreamin'
Senior Eric Guillen has left his mark on USC Upstate baseball. The Thousand Oaks, Calif., native has started all but one game in the last two years in the middle infield and has silently crept up some of the school's career record lists. He enters the weekend needing just one hit to move into the top 10 in school history, where he would tie Jason Westbrook (1993-95) with 179 career hits. His 181 career games are currently seventh in school history, just three appearances away from the top five and his 647 at bats are sixth. In the field, his 449 career assists are third.
The 5-10 middle infielder has heated up in the last seven games, hitting .400 (12-for-30) with eight runs and seven RBI. He has posted four straight two-hit games and against Charleston Southern on May 7, Guillen had two runs, a double, a triple and three RBI. He also had two runs and two RBI against Wofford on May 5 and two RBI and a run at The Citadel on May 6. In the field, Guillen has posted 11 straight flawless games, one shy of the longest errorless stretch in his career.
Ball Bounces Branham's Way
Despite leaving three games this year qualified for a win, junior Matt Branham's record stood at 0-4 before Upstate exploded for 13 runs with the 6-6 righty on the mound on Tuesday against Wofford. Branham did his part, throwing eight innings, striking out seven and allowing two runs. During the game, the Spartans scored more than half the number of runs (13) than they had with Branham on the mound in his first 10 starts (25). Nevertheless, Branham finally became the 16th player in school history to record 10 wins in a career. He also stands fifth on the school's career innings pitched list, having tossed 218.0 innings and his 4.13 career ERA is seventh in school annals.
A Century In Six Years
The USC Upstate baseball team's 10-3 win over Charleston Southern on Thursday night marked the team's 100th win at six-year-old Cleveland S. Harley Park. The 500-seat complex helped make Upstate a formidable force in Division II before moving up to Division I in 2008. In six seasons at Harley Park, the Spartans have produced a 100-71 (.585) record, with 19 of those wins coming against teams ranked in the Collegiate Baseball Top 30.
Fallon-y
Junior Teddy Fallon has turned into the go-to arm in the Upstate bullpen late this season. In his last six outings, he has a 1-0 record with a save and a 3.18 ERA in 17 innings. The Florida fireballer has struck out 17 and walked nine during that stretch. His four innings of one-hit, scoreless relief against Kennesaw State helped the Spartans take a 7-5 decision on Easter Sunday. Against The Citadel on May 6, Fallon was just as good, throwing 3 1/3 innings of one-hit ball, striking out one. Fallon's emergence has come after he held a 16.88 ERA and had walked 36 batters in his first 13 1/3 innings.
Denny's Indent
Senior Dennis McCraney appeared in his 73rd career game on Wednesday at The Citadel and gave one of the best performances of his career. The southpaw pitched 5 2/3 innings, his longest outing since going a career-high six innings at Coker on March 8, 2006, his third career start. Although he didn't strike anyone out and gave up 10 hits, McCraney got three groundball double plays to escape serious damage and left the game with a 6-3 lead, which stood as the final score. The win tied McCraney for the team lead and also moved his record as a starter this year to 3-1 in four starts. With a 5.17 ERA, he has struck out six in 15.2 innings of work.
Now with eight games left, McCraney's indent on the Spartan record book is certain. His 12 career wins, five as a starter, are eighth in school history and his 73 appearances are third in school history, just three behind the school record of 76 set by Chris Fowler from 1989-92.
Who Needs A Four-Leaf Clover?
For USC Upstate the past four years, there has been no better omen than to see senior Dennis McCraney toss out the game's first pitch. The senior southpaw has only started 13 games in his career, but Upstate is 12-1 (.923) in those games. A weekday starter as a freshman, McCraney started nine games, all Spartan wins and this season, McCraney has started four games, winning three. He posted back-to-back wins in pre-determined shortened starts. In starts against N.C. A&T and Charlotte, McCraney pitched 7 1/3 innings and posted a 1.23 ERA, despite the fact that his start against the Aggies on March 10 was his first in a span of 48 appearances, since he was a freshman.
The only game that McCraney started that Upstate lost was a 20-14 loss at Wake Forest on April 7, and even in that game, Upstate posted an eight-run rally in the eighth inning that just fell short. Ironically, McCraney is only 4-1 as a starter, qualifying for the win just twice as a freshman.
Pick-Up Game
Having lost seven dates due and three games due to weather, the USC Upstate baseball team finally got a chance to add a game, ironically, because of bad weather in Spartanburg on Wednesday. While rain poured down and tornado warnings popped up all over the Upstate, the Spartans were in the midst of beating The Citadel, 6-3, on a beautiful day in Charleston. Meanwhile, South Carolina's game at Wofford was canceled, leaving the Gamecocks one game shy of a full schedule. On Thursday morning, it was announced that the Spartans and Gamecocks, instead of playing the one nine-inning game originally scheduled for Tuesday, May 12, would play two seven-inning games at Carolina Stadium, with first pitch set for 4 p.m.
