March 3, 2005
FAIRFIELD, Conn. - The Fairfield University baseball team opens the 2005 season on Saturday afternoon with a three-game series at Virginia Commonwealth University. The Stags finished last season with a 16-27 overall record and an 11-16 mark in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC).
Fairfield begins its season with an eight-game trip to Virginia, as after the series with VCU, it has single games at Liberty and Radford, before a three-game series at George Mason University.
Fairfield returns senior co-captains, Tim Dugan and David Soucy. Dugan led Fairfield with 61 strikeouts last season, while Soucy was the teams leading hitter with a .309 batting average.
Junior Doug Anderson is coming off a solid summer playing for the Jersey Pilots of the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League (ACBL), where he batted .289 with one homerun and 14 runs batted in.
The Jersey native had a solid summer in the field, recording a .968 fielding percentage and being a part of 25 double plays.
Last season for the Stags, Anderson batted .279 with four homeruns and 29 runs batted in. He was third on the team with 41 hits, and scored 26 runs for the Stags last season.
The Stags will also look to junior Jim Girolamo who hit .288 as a sophomore last season. He had 32 hits while driving in 12 base runners.
VCU is ranked eighth in the latest CollegeBaseballInsider.com Northeast Coaches Poll after finishing the 2004 season with a 34-24 overall record.
The Rams are currently 6-3 on the young season, after sweeping fellow Fairfield County school, Sacred Heart in a three-game series. VCU had 23 hits and 23 runs in the doubleheader, as it took a 14-0, 9-0 twin bill sweep, and then a 13-4 win in the finale.
Scott Sizemore led the Rams over the weekend, going 5-for-10 with his second homerun of the season. Sergio Miranda plated five times over the course of the weekend. The VCU pitching staff scattered 15 hits in three games.
Harold Mozingo (2-1) tossed six scoreless innings in game 1 giving up only three hits, striking out nine hitters and walking three. Michael Gibbs made his first start of the season going five innings with three hits and six strikeouts.
Following the week-long trip to Virginia, the Stags will take part in the Villanova Baseball Bash. Fairfield will meet the host Wildcats on Friday, March 18, and face St. Joseph's on Saturday and Temple on Sunday, at their home fields.
