ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. (May 3, 2016) - One last tune-up for the Molloy College baseball team will occur Tuesday night (May 3) when the Lions will play in their final non-conference battle of the regular season in New Jersey against the Caldwell University Cougars. These two teams have played each other before this season, but since that time both squads have taken drastically different directions as the 2016 campaign winds towards a postseason conclusion.
About the Lions
- Molloy will enter the contest with an overall record of 28-16. The maroon and white are 16-8 in non-conference games and 14-10 away from home (10-6 in traditional road games, 4-4 on neutral ground).
- The story of the Lions' season will go down as one of the best team batting efforts on record. As a squad, the Lions are batting .309 (466 hits in 1510 at-bats) with 10 total home runs and 242 runs batted in (plus-50 margin over opponents). Molloy also is faring better than the competition in on-base percentage (.386 to .336) and slugging percentage (.394 to .342).
- Sophomore first baseman
Angelo Navetta (Staten Island, N.Y.) leads the East Coast Conference with a .383 batting average and holds a team-high 62 hits through 43 games played. The sweet-swinging lefty has collected 16 multi-hit games this year and has had a base hit in 34 contests overall. Senior outfielder
Nicholas Gonchar (Staten Island, N.Y.) has turned into a quality product for the Lions near the bottom of the line-up, as well. Gonchar is hitting .330 with 10 doubles and 28 RBIs and is hitting .346 since April 2 with 21 runs batted in.
Concerning the Cougars
- Since Caldwell defeated Molloy by a 5-4 final on Mar. 15, the teams have been on opposite trajectories. On one hand, Molloy has gone 18-11 since the defeat to the Cougars; on the other, Caldwell---which was 3-4 at the time of the win---has only won six of its last 27 contests. Caldwell is 9-25 on the season, having dropped its last two games in a CACC doubleheader to Chestnut Hill on Saturday (Apr. 30).
- Junior catcher Michael Bernstein (Staten Island, N.Y.) has been a bright spot for the Caldwell offense, hitting .380 in 32 games with a team-high 25 runs batted in. Meanwhile, junior Ryan Rivera (Saddle Brook, N.J.) has a team-high 10 doubles to go along with two home runs and a .305 clip at the plate.
- The Cougars on the mound are yielding a team earned-run average of 6.25, allowing 199 earned runs and 20 home runs to go along with an opposing batting average against of .317.
