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The Fairleigh Dickinson baseball team will hit the road for Smithfield, RI this weekend to take on first-place Bryant for its biggest test of the season.  The four-game series will begin Friday at 3:00 p.m.  Saturday will feature a pair of seven-inning contests, while the finale is set for 1:00 p.m. Sunday.
 
Last Time Out: The Knights (19-19-1, 13-7 NEC) dropped its mid-week contest to NJIT, 12-5, on Tuesday at the Naimoli Family Baseball Complex.  FDU saw the Highlanders score nine of their 12 runs with two outs.  Trailing 6-1, the Knights came back to cut the lead to 6-5 in the bottom of the sixth but could not get any closer.
 
Senior Matt Holsman (Coral Springs, FL/Stoneman Douglas) collected his 200th career hit to lead off the bottom of the first.  With that milestone, Holsman is the fourth player in program history to achieve 200 hits.  Two more will move him to third place all-time behind current teammate and fellow senior Ryan Kresky (Freehold, NJ/Freehold) and former teammate Brian Dillon (Sarasota, FL/Cardinal Mooney).
 
Freshmen Jordan Ritz (Newport News, Va./Woodside) and Shane Siebler (Nazareth, Pa./Nazareth Area) each had two hits to lead FDU's offense, while freshman Ryan MacDonald (Bethpage, N.Y./Island Trees) collected two RBIs.
 
Scouting Bryant: The Bulldogs (26-15, 17-3 NEC), who were picked to finish fourth in the nine-team NEC, are in first place, three spots ahead and four games up on the third-place Knights but are ineligible for the postseason because they are in their final year of transitioning to Division I.  Bryant has been on a tear since losing three of four against the likes of Boston College and LIU Brooklyn, with two of the losses coming against the Blackbirds.  Since the second loss to LIU, the Bulldogs have won 14 of their last 16 contests including the last six.  Earlier in the week, they won at Connecticut, a team that made the Super Regional's (Final 16) of the NCAA Tournament last season.  Besides its two NEC losses to LIU, the only other loss Bryant has suffered in conference play is to Sacred Heart.  The Bulldogs also played a three-game series at Radford earlier in the year, losing two of three to the same squad that swept FDU two weeks ago.
 
Senior first baseman Jamie Skagerlind, the reigning NEC Player of the Week, leads Bryant in hitting with a .310 average (45-for-145), total hits, doubles (13) and has collected three home runs, 19 RBIs and 20 runs scored.  Senior outfielder Connor Carignan is hitting .302 (38-for-126) with 27 runs scored and leads the team with 10 stolen bases.  Junior outfielder Kevin Brown is arguably the Bulldogs' best overall player as he is hitting .284 (44-for-155) with nine home runs, 31 RBIs, 33 runs scored, 11 doubles, two triples and eight stolen bases.
 
As a team, Bryant is hitting .266 (344-for-1294) and has scored 216 runs (5.3 runs per game).  The Bulldogs have struck out 247 times, drawn 147 walks and committed an alarming 65 errors (.957 fielding percentage) on defense.  Opponents are hitting only .256 (342-for-1338) off Bryant pitching and have scored 175 runs (4.3 runs per game), drawn 129 walks and struck out 240 times as the pitching staff has recorded a solid team ERA of 3.29.
 
All-Time Series: Bryan has won all eight games in the series, sweeping both NEC series the last two seasons. 

Next Up: The Knights will play their final non-conference contest of the season at Saint Peter's in Jersey City, NJ on Wednesday, May 2.  First-pitch is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.