May 15, 2008

Cullowhee, N.C. - Riding a season-long, eight-game winning streak, the Western Carolina Catamount baseball team enters its final week of the regular season with three games remaining until the 2008 Bennett Hofford Family of Hotels Southern Conference Tournament. WCU is scheduled to open a three-game SoCon home stand against the College of Charleston Cougars at 7:00 pm Thursday night at Childress Field/Hennon Stadium.

The series will run through Saturday, May 17 with first pitch scheduled for 7:00 pm Friday night and 2:00 pm for the finale. Western will honor its four seniors - Jason Haynes, Blake Murphy, Tyler Sexton and Barrett Shaft - in a special pre-game ceremony prior to first pitch on Saturday.

Fans can follow all of the action online by logging onto www.CatamountSports.com for live GameTracker coverage of each game, presented by Carolina West Sports Medicine and the WestCare Health System.

Western (27-24, 13-11 SoCon) has swept its last two conference foes after taking three from Wofford at home and posting its first road sweep of The Citadel in Charleston since 1987. Charleston comes to town having swept the Terriers last weekend at home, but the Cougars have dropped both of their last two SoCon road series, being swept at UNC Greensboro and Furman, to stand at 6-6 on the road in league action.

The Catamounts trail in the all-time series against the College of Charleston, 24-9, and have dropped four-straight to the Cougars. WCU's last victory over Charleston came in the series finale of in 2006, a 5-4 win over then 17th-ranked CofC in Cullowhee.

Last year, the College of Charleston swept the Catamounts in the Lowcountry including a pair of one-run contests. However, the two teams then went on to share the SoCon title at the end of the season with identical 20-7 records before both bowing out of the SoCon tourney early.

College of Charleston (34-18, 16-8 SoCon) is playing for a chance to wrap-up a share of the conference title for a second-straight season. The Cougars took 2-of-3 from the Elon Phoenix in Charleston earlier this year, so a CofC sweep would create a two-way tie for first-place, with the Cougars taking the top seed based on the tie-breaker. One Coug loss would give the outright seasonal title and top seed to the Phoenix.

Charleston is ranked first nationally with a 10.4 runs-per-game average and has hit 108 home runs so far this season, second in SoCon history behind WCU's record 116 HRs in 1988. The Cougars have scored 548 runs this season and are chasing the SoCon mark of 560 by Western Carolina in 1997.

Elsewhere around the conference, Furman (29-21, 15-9) and Georgia Southern (31-21, 15-9) will duke it out in Greenville, S.C., for third place with a chance for one of the two to finish second. Davidson (11-36, 3-22) took game one from UNC Greensboro (30-24, 14-11) as the Spartans try to stay out of the seven-through-10 spots in the order to avoid next Tuesday's single-elimination opening round. Also, Appalachian State (30-23, 13-11) visits Wofford (21-32, 4-20) with the Mountaineers - entering the series tied with WCU for sixth with the tie-breaker in hand - also trying to stay out of seventh place.

Western Carolina can help its own cause by sweeping the Cougars, which will put the two in a tie inside the top half of the SoCon standings at 16-11 in league play. WCU would stay out of the single-elimination round with the tie-breaker over the Cougars.

Of the teams currently ahead of Western, the Catamounts only hold the tie-breaker edge over UNC Greensboro after taking two of three from the Spartans.