DAYTON – The University of Dayton baseball team will host a conference opponent for the first time this season beginning Friday at 7 p.m. The Flyers will welcome George Mason for a matchup at Day Air Ballpark, the home of the Dayton Dragons for the series opener. UD will return on Saturday at 12 p.m. for a doubleheader at Woerner Field before finishing the series with a Sunday contest at 12 p.m.

Tickets are still available for Friday's contest. 

There will be live stats available for all four games as well as an audio stream on Friday.
 
SCOUTING THE FLYERS
Dayton enters the series with an 11-22 record after going 1-3 in the first conference series of 2021 at Davidson. Senior Hunter Wolfe pitched a complete game in the first game of Friday's doubleheader, but Dayton dropped that contest and the second game of the doubleheader as well. UD scored nine runs in a 12-9 loss on Saturday before snapping the losing streak, scoring 11 unanswered runs on Sunday for an 11-5 victory over the Wildcats. Graduate student Chris Cabrera and senior Riley Tirotta both homered in the victory.
 
Tirotta is coming off a week that saw the third baseman hit four home runs in five games, including three against the Wildcats in the final two games of the series. He sits tied for the team lead with a .328 batting average and leads the team with 10 home runs and 35 RBIs. The third baseman is second in the Atlantic 10 and tied for 15^th in Division I in home runs and tied for 23^rd in RBIs. Junior Benjamin Blackwell is tied with Tirotta with a .328 average and is tied with senior Mariano Ricciardi for first in the A-10 with 41 hits this season. Blackwell also leads the team with eight stolen bases, while Ricciardi leads the team in walks with 22. Junior Marcos Pujols is the fourth Flyer with a batting average of above .300, hitting .309 with four home runs and 25 RBIs.
 
Wolfe has been the dominant force in the rotation for the Flyers this season. In his last 40 innings, the senior has allowed just three earned runs while striking out 57. The lefty is tied for 17^th in the country with 63 strikeouts and has moved into fifth place in program history with 188 career strikeouts. As a team, the Flyers have struck out 318 batters this season which leads the conference and rank 20^th in the nation as a team. UD is 14 total strikeouts from cracking the top 10 as a team in program history in a single season. The Flyers had 332 strikeouts in 2002 and 2017. Graduate student Ben Olson is also coming off a dominant performance in relief for Dayton, striking out five and allowing just three hits in 6.1 scoreless innings, picking up his first win of the season against the Wildcats Sunday.
 
SCOUTING THE PATRIOTS
George Mason also enters the series after a 1-3 start to conference play after dropping three of four to Saint Louis last weekend. The Patriots were picked to finish 10^th of 13 teams in the A-10 Preseason Poll after finishing 1-14 in 2020. When these two teams last met in 2019, the Flyers took two of three games on the road from GMU.
 
Offensively, the Patriots are led by Scott Morgan, one of only two players to start every game for George Mason this season. Morgan leads the team with a .302 batting average and leads the team with four home runs and 21 RBIs to this point in the season. Cam Reckling has also been a mainstay of the offense hitting .274 and leading the team with a .402 on-base percentage in 2021. He and Jordan Smith each lead the team with four stolen bases this season. GMU has hit .264 as a team, sitting one spot above Dayton in the conference, with the Patriots sitting seventh and the Flyers in eighth.
 
On the mound, Jared Lyons has been the mainstay of the rotation for George Mason. He sits fourth in the conference with 47 strikeouts and leads the A-10 with 21 looking strikeouts and ranks sixth in both innings pitched (43) and batting average against (.206). Kieran Versaw-Barnes sits second on the team with 27 strikeouts this season and has thrown two complete games this season. Out of the bullpen Sang Ho Baek has just a 2.45 ERA in 7.1 innings this season and Nick Zegna and Jonathan Kaiser each have one save this season.
 
MATCHUP HISTORY
These two will meet for the 14^th time and George Mason leads the series 8-5, though Dayton has won the last two games against the Patriots.