Following nine consecutive road games, the UMass Lowell baseball team will play six of their nine-game homestand over the next eight days. The River Hawks will leadoff this stretch with two against Dartmouth on Tuesday before hosting UMBC in three games over the weekend. Brown will travel to the mill city for a single game on April 21^st before the River Hawks take to the road again.
 
SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
The team made their official home debut at LeLacheur Park over the weekend and took two of three from Maine. The River Hawks beat up on the Black Bears pitchers to the tune of 18 runs on 30 hits, 12 of which were extra base knocks. Sophomore Ian Strom hit a 10^th inning, walk-off double for 4-3 victory in the series opener on Saturday night and the teams split Sunday's action with Maine taking the early game 5-4 before the River Hawks responded with a 10-6 win in the finale.
 
SCOUTING THE BIG GREEN
Dartmouth swept a four game series at Yale over the weekend and enters Tuesday with a 10-19 overall record and 8-4 mark in the Ivy League. Matt Parisi who boasts a .339 batting average with 38 hits and 14 doubles leads the club at the plate. Chad England (0-2), the expected starter in game two, has tossed 11.1 innings in his two starts and has an earned run average of 4.76.
 
SCOUTING THE RETRIEVERS
UMBC heads into Wednesday's game against Mount St. Mary's on a three-game slide after Stony Brook swept the series this weekend. The Retrievers are last in the conference with a .256 batting average but lead the league in home runs (12) and stolen bases (53). Jake Barnes and Anthony Gatto have each gone yard three times while Gatto and Kevin Lachance blaze the base paths with 11 and 13 steals, respectively.
 
LOCKED IN
Senior Danny Mendick hit .421 over the last week to up his average to .352, just edging Ian Strom's .350 average for the teams batting crown. Both were among a group of River Hawks zoned in at the plate this week. On the week Mendick was 8-for-19 with five RBI, runs and doubles, including four in the series against Maine. The shortstop slugged .684 in the five games and had two games with multiple hits and a pair of RBI.
 
Among others in the lineup who are in a groove the last seven days is outfielder Luke Reynolds who hit .500 (7-14) and Jimmy Ricoy who hit .538 (7-13). Reynolds went two-for-three with a run and a double in game one against Maine before going perfect in three at-bats in the second, adding two RBI and another double. A triple at Stony Brook had been his only extra base hit in 2015 before he added three doubles to his line this week. He has also reached base safely in five straight games.
 
In the series opener against Maine, Ricoy hit a two-RBI single in the first inning before drawing three walks the rest of the afternoon. The first baseman followed that with a three-for-four, one RBI performance in the middle game of the series while adding a stolen base in the loss.
 
WE'RE GOING STREAKING!
For the second time this season, third baseman Matthew Sanchez is riding a 10-game hitting streak while having reached base safely in 12 straight. The senior has failed to pick up at least one hit on two occasions this season, first against Georgia State in the season opener and most recently against Bryant. Mendick holds the second longest hit streak with seven consecutive games and has reached safely in eight.
 
STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM
Every River Hawk in the lineup to get an at-bat picked up a hit, as the teams 10 runs against the Black Bears in the series finale were the most they've scored since an 11-9 win at Northeastern on March 25^th. The bottom of the order picked up seven of the teams 15 hits while adding seven runs and exhibited what the offense is capable of when having such balance.
 
DEGROOT'S NEW HIGH
In his first season as a regular in the pitching rotation, senior Geoff DeGroot has struck out three batters on three occasions, but set a new personal-high on Sunday by fanning four Black Bears and now leads the team with 14 K's.
 
RIVER HAWKS IN THE AE
UMass Lowell ranks among the conference leaders in several categories. The team leads the America East in on-base percentage (.367) while ranking second in batting average (.273), stolen bases (45), fewest errors (29) and double plays turned (22). The River Hawks also rank third in slugging percentage (.351).