Pirates Travel to Liberty for Three-Game Set

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – After a 2-1 opening weekend in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Seton Hall baseball team will travel south once again to take on Liberty (1-3) for a three-game series beginning with Friday's 4 p.m. first pitch.

Friday and Sunday's games will be streamed live on ESPN+, which requires a subscription. Live stats can be found on the baseball schedule page on SHUPirates.com and all three games will be have an audio broadcast on the Liberty Flames Sports Network.

Here's the Hall's (2-1) projected rotation this weekend (subject to change):

Friday: RHP Ryan McLinskey (Pearl River, N.Y.) – 0-0, 4.50 ERA
Saturday: RHP Noah Thompson (Frisco, Texas) – 0-0, 3.60 ERA
Sunday: RHP David Festa (Verona, N.J.) – 1-0, 0.00 ERA

Here are the notes you need to know:

Seton Hall heads travels to Liberty this weekend for the first time in program history.
The Pirates are 0-1 against the Flames, who knocked the Hall out of the Columbia Regional, 10-2, in 2000 after receiving an at-large bid.
The Pirates were topped by No. 20 Wake Forest in the season opener on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth, 4-3, but they bounced back to out score their next two opponents, Illinois and Milwaukee, 27-3.
Senior Connor Hood (Shrewsbury, Pa.) was named BIG EAST Player of the Week after hitting .429 (4-for-16) with five RBI and three runs scored in a 2-1 week for the Pirates.
Hood also started at three different positions in the three games; second base, third base and right field.
Led by strong starting pitching, the Pirate pitching staff allowed only five earned runs in 26.2 innings of work last weekend.
The Pirates' trip to Lynchburg serves as a quasi-homecoming for assistant coaches Pat Pinkman and Michael Scimanico. Pinkman pitched at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg where he was a Freshman All-American in 1998 and Scimanico was an All-ODAC pitcher at Shenandoah University in Winchester.
Despite earning the most first place votes in the BIG EAST preseason poll with three, the Pirates were picked to finish second in the BIG EAST by the league's coaches.
Senior first baseman Matt Toke (Three Bridges, N.J.), senior outfielder Tyler Shedler-McAvoy (Allendale, N.J.), senior pitcher Noah Thompson (Frisco, Texas) and sophomore pitcher David Festa (Verona, N.J.) were named Preseason All-BIG EAST.
After a year playing away from its friendly confines on campus, the Pirates will be back in South Orange this season where they'll play in a renovated ballpark newly dubbed Mike Sheppard, Sr. Stadium at Owen T. Carroll Field.