Perfect Game: Bulls Rage On

[Mama_Bull]

Weekend Preview: Week 13

College : : Story

JHEREMY BROWN         MIKE ROONEY         PATRICK EBERT

Published: Thursday, May 11, 2017

 

For the most part two weekends remain to close out the 2017 regular season, with six key in-conference games remaining on the schedule for teams to jockey for position for the individual conference tournaments...

 

...Perfect Game as always will be providing scouting insights from a handful of locations, most notably from Storrs, Conn. as UConn hosts South Florida. Stay tuned this weekend for updates.
 

Bulls Rage On

When Mark Kingston accepted the head coaching position at South Florida prior to the 2015 season, it was widely considered a quality hire for the Bulls and it would only be a matter of time before he established USF as an upper tier team in the America Athletic Conference. It didn’t take long however as his squad advanced to the NCAA Regionals in year one thanks to a 34-26-1 record.

Last spring was a bit of a down year though it was almost to be expected given the number of talented freshmen who were asked to make an immediate impact. Some battled injuries, other experienced growing pains, but with 2016 behind them that freshmen class is now helping lead the Bulls into a potentially deep run this spring.

Here’s a couple numbers to consider: in 2016 the Bulls finished 24-33 with an 8-16 conference record. This season they’re 38-10 and sport a conference best 12-6 record heading into their weekend series against a very talented Connecticut team, who trail by just two games in conference play.

The juices are flowing though as South Florida is currently riding a six-game winning streak and are coming off a three-game sweep over an impressive East Carolina squad and a 15-10 midweek win over nationally ranked Florida. And of those ten losses, six were by two runs or less and they’ve outscored their opponents 303 to 174.

Junior shortstop Kevin Merrell has established himself as one of the top players in the conference and should be off the board extremely early on day two of the MLB draft, if not earlier. An easy plus to double-plus runner, the lefthanded hitting Merrell has seen the hit tool catch up to the speed as he leads the club with a .403 average, has flashed pop with six home runs, and of course has stolen his bases (17) as you’d expect given his speed.

While the offense is hitting a collective .306, the pitching staff is sporting a 2.88 ERA with 505 punch outs to just 162 walks. Phoenix Sanders, Shane McClanahan, and Peter Strzelecki have proven to be a triumphant trio for Kingston, going 11-5 through 12 weeks with a sub-3 ERA. McClanahan, a redshirt-freshman, has established himself as one of the top strikeout arms in the country while the bullpen has been just as impressive with Andrew Perez, Ryan Valdes, and Joe Cavallaro leading the way.

It’s been a loud spring for Coach Kingston and his squad though things might only be getting started down in Tampa.

-Jheremy Brown

 

https://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View.aspx?article=13877

Edited May 11, 2017 by Mama_Bull

[JoeB]

Nice

[Ionbull]

#KingstonKillas please stay!

[NCBull]

I have never seen a spelling like that...Jheremy.  Huh.