By: KSU Sports Information Department
PANTHERSVILLE, Ga. – After a ninth-inning defeat at Stillwell Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Kennesaw State opens up a four-game road trip on Tuesday evening when they play metro-rival Georgia State at The Field at Panthersville.
The Owls and the Panthers will be meeting for the second time this season as Kennesaw State will look to even the season series after Georgia State defeated the Black and Gold, 6-3, at Stillwell Stadium last month.
Both teams enter Tuesday night having lost two of three games over the weekend. The Owls dropped a pair of games to Florida Gulf Coast while the Panthers were defeated by Old Dominion.
After earning his first win of the season against Jacksonville State last Wednesday, Kennesaw State’s Catlan Kendrick (1-0, 2.78) will make his third start of the year. The right-hander has been very effective in his two starts this season, posting a 2.53 ERA in 10 and two-third innings as a starter.
Kendrick will face a Georgia State lineup that has five regulars hitting over .300, including the Colonial Athletic Association’s leading hitter, Mark Micowski, who enters the game with a .369 average.
The Panthers (27-11) also have three players with more than 80 at-bats who are topping the .300 mark as they are batting a healthy .314 as a team. Scoring nearly eight runs per game, they have outscored their opponents by 99 runs and are on pace to score 432 runs this season.
Georgia State is going to throw freshman Sam Agnew-Wieland (2-0, 2.16), who will also be making his third start of the year. The right-hander has wins over Mercer and Alabama State and is holding his opponents to a paltry .202 batting average.
While the Kennesaw State bats have struggled, the top of the lineup has provided the Owls with plenty of offense. Leadoff hitter Ray Anderson is climbing his average higher each game. The redshirt-sophomore has an 11-game hitting streak, the second longest for the Owls this season, and is hitting .344 on the year, second to only Ronnie Freeman.
Freeman is coming off a two-hit game on Sunday, and has five hits over the last three games. Currently eighth in the Atlantic Sun Conference in batting, Freeman is leading the league with 16 doubles, which ranks him fifth in the nation.
Kennesaw State and Georgia State have played each other 12 times prior to Tuesday’s game with the Owls holding a 7-5 advantage. The teams first met in 1984 and played nine times until 1995 when the series stopped with the owls having won six of nine games. In 2010, they renewed their rivalry on a yearly basis with the Panthers winning two out of the three games played.
First-pitch is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. The game can followed via
live stats and can be
heard live at www.ksuowls.com with Jason Hanes calling the action beginning with the pregame show at 5:55 p.m.
