BUIES CREEK, N.C. — Campbell baseball returns to Segra Stadium in Fayetteville, N.C., where the Camels clinched the 2019 Big South tournament championship a season ago, to face Army and Air Force in the Armed Forces Invitational, a three-day, three-team tournament hosted by the Fayetteville Woodpeckers.
The Camels will face Army on Friday, Feb. 28 at 6 p.m., before taking on Air Force on Saturday, Feb. 29 at 1 p.m. Campbell will cap off the weekend by competing against both teams again on Sunday, Mar. 1, first playing Army at 11 a.m. and then Air Force at 3 p.m. A post-game fireworks show will follow the conclusion of the last game on both Friday and Saturday night.
Tickets and additional event information can be found on the official Armed Forces Invitational page on the Fayetteville Woodpeckers website.
Each Campbell game will feature a live audio broadcast through the Campbell Digital Network.
Projected Starting Pitchers
Friday: Cam Cowan (RHP, Jr.) vs. Army's Anthony LoRicco (RHP, Sr.)
Saturday: Kevin Westlake (LHP, Sr.) vs. Air Force's Ryan Stohr (RHP, Fr.)
Sunday G1: Zach Adams (RHP, So.) vs. Army's TBD
Sunday G2: Logan Heintzman (RHP, R-Jr.) vs. Air Force's Jason Shuger (RHP, Fr.)
Campbell Notes
Through the first two weeks of the season, Campbell is led offensively by A.J. Hrica and Collin Wolf, two batters with averages above .350. Hrica owns a .364 average with eight hits, including a pair of doubles, while Wolf enters the weekend batting .357, boasting four doubles and a triple.
The Campbell pitching staff has limited its opponents to a .201 average across the first seven games, only allowing double-digit hits once, while racking up double-digit strikeouts in each game except one. The Camels have held opponents to five hits or less four times this season, which includes the nationally-ranked ECU Pirates on Feb. 19, a 7-2 victory for the Camels.
With a .992 fielding percentage and just two errors to their record, the Camels own the sixth-best mark in the nation and are one of only nine teams to commit two or fewer errors so far this season.
Campbell's Success in Fayetteville
At the 2019 Big South Championship at Segra Stadium in Fayetteville, N.C., Campbell defeated Charleston Southern, then Winthrop twice, including once in the "winner-take-all" championship game, to secure the Big South's automatic bid to the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Campbell outscored its opponents by 23 runs across its three games, 41-18.
In the title game, Matthew Barefoot launched the go-ahead, two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh to lead the Camels to an 8-6 win over Winthrop, good for Campbell's second-straight sweep of the Big South regular-season and tournament titles.
Koby Collins, the Big South Championship MVP, finished Campbell's three games with a .700 batting average (7-for-10) with two home runs and a trio of doubles for a 1.900 slugging percentage. Collins was joined on the All-Tournament Team by Barefoot, Tyler Anshaw and Zach Minnick.
Last Time Out for CU
Campbell went 1-2 in its first Campbell Invitational since 2018, suffering a pair of losses to Purdue and Villanova, before capping the weekend with a 6-2 victory over Maine in the tournament finale.
In Campbell's lone victory of the weekend, Collin Wolf went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and a triple, logging the second three-hit outing of his senior season and the fourth of his two-year career at Campbell with his trio of extra-base hits. Wolf also became the first Camel to record three or more extra-base hits in a single game since May 26, 2018, when Matthew Barefoot had a trio of doubles against High Point.
When Campbell faced Purdue in the tournament opener on Friday, Feb. 21, head coach Justin Haire faced two of his former colleagues: former Campbell head baseball coach Greg Goff (2008-14) and former assistant coach Chris Marx (2015-19). Both Goff and Marx are in their first years in their current roles at Purdue as the head coach and pitching coach, respectively.
2020 Camels Picked as Preseason Favorites
The 2020 Fighting Camels enter the 2020 season as the favorite to win the Big South Conference, according to the league's 10 head coaches, Perfect Game and D1Baseball.
In the Big South coaches poll, Campbell received seven first-place votes, collecting 91 of the possible 100 points to garner the top spot for the second year in a row.
High Point was voted second in the preseason poll for the second year in a row, with a total of 85 points. Radford received 79 votes to finish in third place while Winthrop was selected to finish fourth with 74 points. High Point, Radford and Winthrop each received one first-place vote.
Scouting the Black Knights, Falcons
Army last faced Campbell in 2014 as part of the Campbell Classic, and, like the Camels, the Black Knights are coming off back-to-back conference titles, winning the 2018 and 2019 Patriot League tournament championships. Campbell's games against Air Force will be the first-ever contests between the Camels and the Falcons.
Army is one of Campbell's six teams on the 2020 schedule that made the 2019 NCAA Tournament. The Black Knights were a No. 4 seed in the Lubbock Regional, going 0-2 with losses against the top-seeded Texas Tech Raiders and No. 3 Florida Gators. Meanwhile, Campbell was a No. 3 seed at the Greenville Regional, and went 2-0 over its first two games, making the program's first regional championship game appearance before dropping two games to the host ECU Pirates.
Both Army and Air Force enter the weekend with just one win to their records, with Army sitting at 1-5 and Air Force holding a 1-7 record.
Army's lone win came in the season opener when the Black Knights defeated nationally-ranked Duke in Durham, 2-1. Since then, Army has lost its last five games, dropping the final two games of the weekend series to Duke before being swept by Texas A&M last weekend.
Much like Army, Air Force has not won since Opening Day, dropping its last seven contests since opening the season with a 4-3 victory over Manhattan. In Air Force's most recent game on Monday, Feb. 24, the Falcons were shut out by Duke, 16-0.
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