No. 5 Spartans to Battle Rollins in SSC Regular Season Finale

TAMPA, Fla. - After picking up a series win over the No. 20 Saint Leo University Lions and improving one spot in the national rankings, the No. 5 University of Tampa Spartans baseball team will host the visiting Rollins College Tars for a weekend series. The two-day, three-game Sunshine State Conference regular season finale will begin Friday night at 6 p.m. from UT Baseball Field.

The Spartans are the nation's No. 5 team, and currently boast a 14-7 Sunshine State Conference record, ranking second among the highly competitive conference teams. Garnering an impressive 33-11 record, the Spartans' all-time record against Rollins is Saint Leo is 99-27-1. During the 2014 season, the Spartans swept the Tars at Rollins' home field in Winter Park, Fla.

Tampa currently has eleven hitters posting .300-plus batting averages, and junior Keaton Aldridge leads the team with an impressive .400 percentage. Following his lead are Brett Jones, Cody deNoyelles, Giovanny Alfonzo, Nick Flair, Casey Scoggins, Nick Tindall, Stephen Dezzi, Ian Townsend, Chris Pagliarulo, and Andrew Amaro.

Jones ranks fifth in the Sunshine State Conference in hitting for every day starters, and Dezzi ranks fourth among SSC players with a .475 on-base percentage, 13 homeruns, and 31 walks. Other notable statistics leaders include Alfonzo, who ranks fifth in runs scored with 50, and Flair who stands at fifth on the leaderboard for RBI and second for sacrifice flyouts.

Townsend is tied for second with Flair for sac flies with six on the season, and the junior also ranks third in the league in triples. Scoggins also stands in third place for sacrifice bunts and ranks fifth in stolen bases.

Tampa starting pitchers Chase Sparkman (3.50 ERA), Michael Calkins (3.55 ERA), and Brad Hencke (4.79 ERA) have led the Spartans so far this year. As a whole, the pitching staff currently ranks third in the league in ERA, wins, saves, and runners picked off.

In total, the pitching staff has recorded 305 strikeouts, walking 131 batters in 397.2 innings pitched.

Rollins heads into the weekend series with a 20-26-1 overall record, maintaining a last place standing in the Sunshine State Conference with a record of 5-15-1. The Tars ended the 2014 year with 17-28 finish and did not advance to the post season.

Tampa has been nationally ranked for 21 consecutive seasons dating back to 1994. Additionally, the Spartans have been a mainstay in the top-10 under Urso as they have been in the top-10 each of his 15 seasons at the helm. This also marks the sixth time that the Spartans are a preseason No. 1, and the second straight.

Live stats and video will be available for all games. Fans may follow live stats at Tampa.Statbroadcast.com, or TampaStats.com on a mobile device. Fans may also watch live through TampaSpartans.tv.

Fans may follow University of Tampa athletics on Twitter (www.twitter.com/utspartans), Facebook (www.facebook.com/tampaspartans), YouTube (youtube.com/utathletics) and Instragram (tampaspartans). UT also offers blAst, a free text messaging service that sends text alerts following all Spartan events. To sign up, please register at www.tampaspartans.com.