Saint Leo baseball vs. No. 22 Florida Southern
Where: Henley Field – Lakeland, Fla.
When: Friday, May 13 – 6:00 pm  //  Saturday, May 14 – 1:00 pm (DH)
Live stats: links for all three games

• Saint Leo baseball (27-19, 10-11 SSC) closes out the 2016 regular season against SSC archrival Florida Southern on Friday and Saturday at Henley Field. The Mocs, currently ranked No. 22 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll, enter the weekend with a 30-16 overall record, 12-9 in the SSC. The Lions took two out of three out of their last series against Eckerd, back on April 30-May 1. Saint Leo had a bye week in the schedule last weekend, and have not played since May 1.
• Outfielder Alex Mata enters this weekend's series with Florida Southern needing just two hits to reach 200 for his career. The redshirt junior from Ft. Myers, Fla., has 71 hits this season just shy of the 72 hits he collected in 2015, with 198 career hits. Mata's 44 career doubles has him tied with Cliff Champion (1984-87) in fourth place among Saint Leo career doubles leaders. Mata is currently tied for second among SSC leaders in doubles with 19, 33^rd among D-II leaders, and is seventh in RBI (51).
• First baseman Troy Sieber, who was named a 2016 Tino Martinez Award semifinalist earlier this week, comes into the Florida Southern series with 28 career home runs, fourth among Saint Leo career leaders and one shy of tying Cliff Champion for third on the leaderboard.
• Sieber comes into the final regular season weekend with a .456 batting average – best in the SSC, and eighth among NCAA Division II leaders. In on base percentage, Sieber is leading both the conference and the nation with a .559 on base pct. He is second in the SSC with a .848 slugging percentage and ranked seventh in Division II. Sieber is also among SSC leaders in runs scored (62, 3^rd), home runs (13, 4^th), RBI (52, T-5^th), and hits (72, 9^th).
• Junior Zach Whitaker (5-1, 4.39 ERA) paces the pitching staff in earned run average and strikeouts (58), while sophomore Jordan Pendleton (8-3, 6.02 ERA) leads the Lions in wins on the mound.
• Florida Southern has dropped five of its last eight contests, but has played a tough schedule over the last three weeks; four of those five losses were evenly split between #3 Tampa and #14 Nova Southeastern. Sam Machonis is FSC's top hitter with a .387 average and a .628 slugging percentage; he has 74 hits over 46 games with 12 doubles and 10 home runs. Pitcher Ben Richardson has a 5.09 ERA and 9-4 record, but his 74 strikeouts is fifth among SSC leaders.