UTICA, NY - The Utica College baseball team is back from its trip down south after a 2-7 showing in the Russ Matt Central Florida Invitational in Auburndale, FL. The Pioneers will travel to Ithaca this weekend for a three-game set, to face the 5-3 Ithaca College Bombers for an Empire 8 matchup. Griffin Baur (New York Mills, NY/New York Mills) (1-1, 4.35 ERA) and Jonathan Hardy (Clinton, NY/Clinton) (0-2, 5.19 ERA) will be expected to make their third starts of the season while Sean Morris (Califon, NJ/Voorhee) (1-0, 5.79 ERA) is expected to make his second.
 
The series kicks off on Saturday with a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m., with the third and final game of the matchup beginning at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
 
New York State of Mind: The Pioneers are back in New York after beginning their season in Florida on March 10th thanks to a pair of cancellations on the 8th and 9th. After dropping their first five games, the Pioneers finished their trip playing .500 ball, 2-2, nabbing wins over Fredonia and Cornell College.
 
Baur Outage: Junior Griffin Baur (New York Mills, NY/New York Mills) showed out in Florida last week, enough so that he earned himself Empire 8 Pitcher of the Week honors for March 11-17. After a shaky outing against Simpson College, in which he allowed five earned runs on seven hits in just 3.1 innings of work, Baur responded with one of the best games of his collegiate career. In his following start against Cornell College, the 6-foot righty went on to hurl seven innings for the Pioneers allowing just one unearned run on two hits. Baur sat down several batters on his own in the contest, tallying nine strikeouts.
 
Can't Stop Quinlan: Senior Tim Quinlan (Monroe, CT/Masuck) had himself quite the trip, hitting .370 (10-27) with nine RBI's, four doubles, and one home run. His batting average ranks eighth among qualified batters in the Empire 8. He also managed to work seven walks, bringing his OPS to a whopping 1.116. Quinlan is now responsible for the lone Pioneers homer of the season and accounts for half of the team's total RBI count.
 
Middle of the Pack: The middle infielders for the Pioneers, Ryan Palmer (Verona, NY/VVS) and Christian Tiffin (Sherrill, NY/VVS), had solid Florida trips as well. Palmer batted .280 (7-25) in nine games while scoring six times and pushing across one. As for Tiffin, he hit .278 (5-18) in seven games with four doubles and one RBI of his own.
 
Some Love for Leviton: Matthew Leviton (South River, NJ/South River) performed well at the plate during the week down south. The 5-foot-11 junior batted .333 (6-18), 14th in the Empire 8, in eight games. He pushed across three runs, while scoring one of his own, and swiped three of four stolen base attempts.
 
Searching For Offense: Outside of a few individual performances, the Pioneers were rather quiet at the plate to start the season. As a team they hit .190 (47-248) over the nine games played down south while averaging a shade under three runs per game. With that, just 13 of the Pioneers' 47 hits have gone for extra bases, featuring 12 doubles and one home run.
 
Scouting Ithaca: The Bombers will enter the weekend series versus the Pioneers with a 5-3 overall record. All eight of their games thus far were played last week in California after their first six scheduled games in Virginia were canceled or postponed. Senior Adam Gallagher earned Empire 8 Player of the Week for March 11-17 after hitting .429 (9-21) over the final six games of Ithaca's trip to California. Gallagher produced 11 RBI's, eight runs scored and three home runs. As a team they have hit .272 with 17 extra base hits, including five long balls. They haven't shown much aggression on the bases as they are just 1-4 on stolen base attempts. On the bump the Bombers own a 5.48 ERA as opponents are batting just over .300 against them. However, Senior Emmett Dunn has been spectacular in 13 innings on the hill. Dunn owns a 1-1 record with a 0.69 ERA (one earned run) and a 5/1 K/BB ratio.
 
Up Next: After their series at Ithaca, the Pioneers will hit the road once again on March 27th to take on SUNY Cobleskill. After four more non-conference games following SUNY Cobleskill, the Pioneers will return to Empire 8 play from April 6-7 when Stevens comes to town.