Radford closes out the 2011 regular season with the final weekend of Big South play, a three-game series at Liberty beginning Thursday night.
With the Big South Tournament scheduled to begin on Tuesday night at host site VMI, league play in the final weekend has been adjusted so that the season concludes on Saturday.
The weekend is one with opportunities for the Highlanders, who have clinched a berth in the eight-team tournament. Sitting six games behind front-runner Coastal Carolina, Radford is in a tie for sixth place with VMI but owns the tiebreaker over the Keydets by virtue of a series win in April. Just one game ahead of Radford are Winthrop and Gardner-Webb, who play each other beginning Thursday. Charleston Southern is in third place and two games ahead of Radford – the Buccaneers are at Coastal Carolina this weekend.
If Radford finishes in places five through eight, the Highlanders will play on Tuesday at VMI in a single-elimination game to enter the main draw. A finish of fourth or better will give the Highlanders a berth in the six-team bracket – Radford was fourth in 2009 and third in 2010.
Radford moved up to fourth place in the standings in 2009 on the strength of its series win at Liberty, which was the last trip for the Highlanders to Worthington Stadium. The Flames swept the series a season ago in Radford and hold a 47-23 series advantage heading into the weekend.
Since losing at No. 2 South Carolina on April 26, Liberty (32-20, 17-7 Big South) is 10-1 and 5-1 in Big South games, the only loss coming in extra innings at Gardner-Webb in the series opener last Friday. The Flames are bidding to finish second in the league standings for the second straight year and for the third time in four years.
WEEKEND NOTEBOOK
• Radford remains two wins away from matching the school's single season wins mark of 30 in 1995
• The season has been impacted by weather throughout – 26 of the 50 games have either had time changes, date changes or have been cancelled (4)
• The Highlanders have played in eight doubleheaders over the last 10 weekends
• The series win over High Point was the first league series win since the UNC Asheville series (April 22-23) and snapped a six-game winless streak in conference play
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Abram Williams, who leads the Big South with 14 saves, is two away from matching the conference single-season record of 16, set in 2000 by Liberty's Josh Brey
• Williams was the co-Big South Pitcher of the Week, sharing the honor with Matt Rein from Coastal Carolina – it was the first conference weekly honor for Williams
• Williams is seventh in the nation in saves, and just two behind national leaders Tyler Maloof (Georgia) and Bo Reeder (ETSU)
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Matt Hillsinger is 11th in the nation and the conference leader with his 28 stolen bases – that total is the third most in a regular season in Radford program history (Ty Rivers stole 33 in 2010)
• Hillsinger's 49 career steals are fifth all-time at Radford and five behind Brewers farmhand
Reggie Keen for the No. 4 spot
• Hillsinger is the team's leader in batting average entering the weekend (.379) after a 5-for-11 series against High Point; his average is fourth in the conference
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Eddie Butler picked up his seventh win of the season, tied for the third-most in the conference
• Butler is one of five pitchers in program history to reach the seven-win mark, and is two victories behind Jim Abbott's record-setting mark of nine in 1995
• Only three pitchers: Abbott, Tim Manwiller (1997) and Bundy Fulmer (2000) have won eight or more games in a season at Radford University
• Butler's 81 2/3 innings of work are fourth in the Big South
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Alex Guerra, who went 4-for-4 and hit his sixth homer of the season in the first game of the High Point series last weekend, has hit in four straight games (7-for-13)
