Baseball team hits road for doubleheader Saturday

The Eastern Florida State College baseball team will hit the road for a doubleheader against the State College of Florida-Manatee on Saturday afternoon.

The Titans won the first game of the series 5-3 and have won three in a row and five of the last six and are in the hunt for the postseason. Eastern Florida State College is 15-13 in the Citrus Conference and has 27 wins on the season.

The State College of Florida-Manatee are 17-11 in the conference and are 17-6 at home this season. The Manatees rallied in the ninth inning on Thursday but fell short as Titans closer Houston Wills got out of the jam with a strikeout.

Jason Mack had a couple of RBI singles in the win and has been hot over the past couple of weeks, going 12-25 and is hitting .344 on the season.

Sophomore Michael Benedict is scheduled to take the mound in one of the games Saturday and is the NJCAA Division I Pitcher of the Week, striking out 10 over six shutout innings last Saturday. He has allowed three runs over the past three starts and heads into Saturday with a 3.07 ERA and a 4-0 record with 42 strikeouts in 44 innings.

Lochlan Radloff has been one of the Manatees most reliable starters this season and comes into Saturday's games with a 3.07 ERA in 11 starts with 80 strikeouts in 67 1/3 innings.

Ben Ryan and Connor O'Sullivan each had two hits on Thursday.

Saturday's doubleheader will begin at 1 p.m.