Midweek Intrastate Stylez - Kennesaw and Georgia State Previews

First off, Nomar Garciaparra was nominated for the College World Series Legends team. Vote for him here. Nomar played short stop at Tech from 1992-1994. He racked up 169 career starts for the Yellow Jackets and was first team All-America in 1993 and 1994. Nomar was drafted as the twelfth overall pick in the 1994 MLB Draft and went on to have a pretty good pro career for the Boston Red Sox.

Georgia State
The Panthers host Tech tonight while the Owls host Tech on Wednesday. The midweek skirmish with GSU 14-10 (2-1) appears to be a battle of two undefeated pitchers in Tech's Mark Pope and GSU's Nick Squeglia (ERA 3.68). Squeglia appears to be one of GSU's stronger pitchers as he's only giving up a 0.232 batting average. However, he seems to have control issues having a 7:6 strikeout to walk ratio.

The Panthers are actually a pretty good offensive unit. They are batting 0.379 as a team, have racked up 42 homers, and are scoring 13.2 runs per game. The team is led by four guys hitting in the 0.400's. Against Florida State, the Panthers only managed 12 runs over the three game series and batted 0.237. In contrast, FSU racked up 37 runs against the Panthers and batted 0.352. Tech may struggle initially against Squeglia but look for Tech to seal the deal as Squeglia loses his control throughout the course of the game.

Kennesaw State
The Owls 10-16 (2-7) are struggling in comparison to the Panthers. And most of it is related to bad pitching. The Owls have shown they have the talent to play with the big boys as they beat Georgia 11-1 on March 10th and split a two game series with Tennessee. The pitching for the Owls in losses has been atrocious. The team ERA of 6.76 is due to collapses on the weekends and collapses during the midweek. Look for Tech to take advantage of whoever the Owls throw as the Owls haven't shown any pitching competency outside of lucky midweek match ups.

When I said their issues were mostly due to bad pitching, I was lying. The Owls don't have much of an offensive unit either. The team is batting sub-0.300 and only has three guys batting above 0.300. Tech has hit 50 homers. KSU has hit 17. If Buck Farmer pitches against the Owls, it should be a good outing.

Look for an intrastate sweep and for Tech to improve to 5-0 on the season against State of Georgia teams. Tech still has a midweek series against Georgia Southern, two games against Georgie, and single games against Kennesaw State and Georgia State after this week's pair of intrastate rivalry games. First pitch is 6:00 PM tonight.