FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida Gulf Coast University baseball embarks on its fourth Atlantic Sun Conference road series of the season Thursday, this time facing the Jacksonville Dolphins in Jacksonville, Florida.
FGCU is 1-2 in road series with its lone road series win coming last weekend against Queens in Charlotte. FGCU lost the series at Stetson and North Florida. However, the Eagles ride a back-to-back ASUN series win streak heading into Thursday's game one action. The Eagles took two of three against Jacksonville and Queens after starting a program-worst 2-7 in conference. Since then, FGCU is 4-2 in league play.
Game one at Jacksonville is scheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m. with Easter Sunday coming up. Game two is set for Friday at 7 p.m., and the series finale will be on Saturday at 1 p.m. All three games will be streamed on ESPN+.
The last time FGCU squared off against Jacksonville, FGCU won the first two games in dramatic fashion. Jake McKee hit a grand slam in a 13-12 game one win, and Jon Embury hit a walk-off, three-run blast in game two. The Eagles surrendered 13 runs in game three going for the sweep in Fort Myers.
FGCU is second in the ASUN this season in total home runs with 37. Harrison Povey leads all Eagles with nine and is 12 away from breaking the FGCU all-time home run record held by Joe Kinker (61). Two-way star Evan Dempsey is 17th in the country in drawing hit by pitches, taking one for the team 17 times.
Defensively, FGCU is also second in the ASUN in total double plays helping out a susceptible pitching rotation.
The Green & Blue is 5-2 in its last seven games and soars up to Jacksonville on a two-game win streak. FGCU dominated FIU on Tuesday for a 13-3 run-rule win in eight innings to improve to 15-21 on the season.
Jacksonville is 19-16 and 9-6 in the ASUN, good enough for second place in the Graphite Division. Last weekend, JU took two out of three at West Georgia. West Georgia swept FGCU in Fort Myers. FGCU is perched in 5th place and three games back of the Dolphins. Stetson leads the division at 13-2.
