Baseball Kicks Off A-10 Championship on Wednesday

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Bronx, N.Y. – (May 21, 2019) – The 2019 Atlantic 10 Baseball Championship gets underway on Wednesday at Houlihan Park, and the host Fordham Rams are the #4 seed in the championship, making their 11th appearance.
 
Fordham (34-22, 15-9) secured the fourth seed in this week's championship after taking two of three contests at Dayton last weekend.  The Rams have surged at the end of the regular season, winning 11 of the final 15 games on the schedule, batting .297 over that stretch, while holding opponents to a .227 average.
 
The Rams take the fifth-seeded Richmond Spiders (27-23-1, 13-8), who enter the Championship, averaging 6.8 runs per contest, while batting .287 as a team.  Like Fordham, the Spiders da a pair of First Team All-Atlantic 10 performers in Tyler Plantier and Anthony Forte.  Plantier hit .337 with 45 runs scored, 12 home runs, and 49 RBI, while Forte was a .291 hitter with 44 runs scored, 12 home runs, and a team-high 51 RBI. 
 
PROBABLE STARTERS/GAME COVERAGE
Fordham – RHP Anthony DiMeglio (5-3, 2.53) vs. Richmond – RHP Tim Miller (5-2, 3.23) // Live Video | Live Audio | Live Stats | Twitter - @FordhamBaseball
 
CHAMPIONSHIP HISTORY: This is Fordham's 11^th appearance at the Atlantic 10 Championship, having made the tournament five of the last six years.  The team won the title once, back in 1998.  The Rams are 8-20 all-time at the Championship, and went 1-2 in last year's Championship at George Washington.
 
SERIES HISTORY: Fordham and Richmond have met 37 times primarily as conference opponents.  The Spiders hold a 21-16 edge in the all-time series, which dates back to 1923.  Last season, Richmond took the series on the final weekend of the regular season.
 
FOUR RAMS NAMED TO ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS (5/21):  The Atlantic 10 Conference released its 2019 Baseball All-Conference and major winner awards on Tuesday, as voted on by the league's head coaches, ahead of this week's Atlantic 10 Baseball Championship held at Fordham's Houlihan Park.

 
Headlining the award winners is Fordham sophomore pitcher John Stankiewicz (Cherry Hill, N.J.), who was named the Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Year and First Team All-Atlantic 10.  He is joined on the First Team by junior reliever Kyle Martin (Oceanside, N.Y.), while freshman Jason Coules (Bellmore, N.Y.) was selected to the Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team.  In addition, junior Billy Godrick (Millersville, Md.) was named to the Atlantic 10 All-Academic team in a vote of the conference's sports information directors.
 
Stankiewicz becomes the second Ram to be named the Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Year, joining Tom Davis in 2008.  He was named Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Week three times this season and was among the NCAA leaders in ERA (2^nd – 1.20), WHIP (6^th - 0.84), and strikeout-to-walk ratio (7^th – 7.46).  He finished with a team-high 97 strikeouts in 82.1 innings pitched, registering a 7-3 record in 15 appearances.  The 97 strikeouts is tied for the fourth-highest single season strikeout total in program history with Pete Harnisch (1987) and Brett Kennedy (2015).  In Atlantic 10 play, Stankiewicz was 4-2 with a 1.19 ERA and 58 strikeouts in 53 innings.
 
Martin joins Stankiewicz on the First Team, giving Fordham multiple First Team All-Atlantic 10 selection for just the second time since joining the league.  The previous time was in 2008.  Martin posted nine saves and five victories in 26 appearances out of the bullpen this season, and became Fordham's all-time leader in saves (20).  He finished the regular season with a 2.57 ERA and 53 strikeouts in 35 innings, while giving up just eight walks and a .176 opponent batting average.  He was even better in league action, recording two wins and five saves, to go with a 0.47 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 19.1 innings.
 
Coules earns All-Rookie Team honors, extending Fordham's string of nine straight seasons with at least one player named to the All-Rookie squad.  He was Fordham's top freshman hitter, batting .292 with 19 runs scored, eight doubles, two home runs, 13 RBI, and 15 stolen bases.  In league action, he was one of two players to hit .300 or better for the Rams, scoring ten runs to go with five doubles and eight steals.
 
Godrick picks up his second straight All-Academic accolade as he was named to the team last year.  Recently named to the Google Cloud Academic All-District Team, he holds a 3.91 GPA in Public Accounting and is currently under consideration for Academic All-American honors.  The Rams' starting centerfielder has appeared in 51 games this season, totaling 19 runs, five doubles, two home runs, 12 RBI, and 10 stolen bases.

 
30-SOMETHING: For the second straight season, the Rams have reached the 30-win plateau, marking the first time since the 1990 and 1991 seasons, the Fordham has recorded back-to-back 30-win campaigns.
 
GUESS WE'RE FASCIST: In the movie Bull Durham, Crash Davis says that "strikeouts are fascist."  If that's the case, the Fordham pitching staff might be fascist.  For the fifth straight year, the Rams have broken team strikeout record as a pitching staff.  The team's streak started with 392 in 2015, followed by 408 in 2016 and 414 in 2017.  In 2018, Fordham crushed the mark with 536, and this year, the team has racked up 551.  The Rams average 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings, which rates tenth in the country, and first in the Atlantic 10.
 
RAMS IN THE NCAA RANKINGS (5/21): Entering this week, the Fordham Rams rank among the top 15 nationally in a number of categories.  Fordham is first in the nation in stolen bases per game at 2.96, as well as in overall in swipes with 166.  The Rams are also fourth in the nation in team ERA with an Atlantic 10-best mark of 3.16.  Fordham is also eighth in hits allowed per nine innings (7.32) and tenth in strikeouts per nine innings (10.2).  Individually, Jake MacKenzie is third in the nation in stolen bases (42) and 14^th in triples (6), while John Stankiewicz is second in ERA (1.20), sixth in WHIP (0.84), and seventh in strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.46).
 
CLOSING IN ON MILESTONES: A number of Rams have hit or are closing in on some career and single season milestones in the coming games, and here is a quick look:
 
Career Saves – Kyle Martin – 20 (Fordham program record)
Career Doubles – Justin Bardwell – 55 (one shy of breaking record - 55 by Greg Smith)
Career RBI – Justin Bardwell – 118 (two shy of 120 – would be the 13^th Ram to reach mark)
Career Triples – Jake MacKenzie – 12 (Danny Leach is third all-time with 13)
Career Stolen Bases – Jake MacKenzie – 76 (fifth all-time at Fordham)
Single Season Stolen Bases – Jake MacKenzie - 42 (became the seventh Ram to reach 40)
Career Strikeouts – Anthony DiMeglio – 203 (ninth Ram to reach 200)
Single Season ERA – Anthony Zimmerman – 0.86 (record is 0.85 by Bob Cooney in 1927)
 
WHO'S NEXT: If the Rams win, the team will face top seed VCU at 1:30 PM on Thursday.  A loss would put Fordham into the consolation bracket and would have to wait to find out their opponent.