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It is the time of the season when championships are won, NCAA Regional bids are wrapped up and legacies are left for the future.
It is the stretch run, and the Troy Trojans will head into the final 23 days of the 2006 regular season with a slim one-game lead over Louisiana-Lafayette in the race for the Sun Belt title. The Trojans have just 13 games left to play in the regular season, 12 of them in conference play.
The stretch run starts this weekend with a three-game home series against New Orleans. The Privateers come into the series off a home loss to LSU on Wednesday, but also riding a three-game conference win streak. In league play, UNO is 5-1 at home, but just 2-7 on the road.
Troy enters the weekend off its worse loss of the season. After beating Birmingham-Southern at home 15-8 earlier this month, the Panthers turned the tables on Troy on Wednesday, using a seven-run inning to beat the Trojans by the same score, snapping Troy's eight-game road win streak, which had been the longest in the country.
Despite the loss, the Trojans still rank among the top 20 teams in the nation in the RPI. The Trojans enter the weekend ranked 18th according to www.warrennolan.com, while UNO comes in a No. 121.
While the loss on Wednesday hurt the Trojans in terms of RPI, Troy continues to rank among the national leaders in most offensive categories.
Troy is first in at bats (1654), hits (561), doubles (117) and in RBI (374) and is third in total bases (876). The Trojans also rank in the top 10 in on-base percentage (6th, .419), slugging percentage (6th, .530), OPS (6th, .949), batting average (4th, .339) and home runs (tied for 5th, 62).
On the pitching side, Troy ranks nationally in strikeouts (6th, 380).
Senior Jared Keel continued to swing a hot bat for the Trojans with a three-run homer on Wednesday to extend his hitting streak to 15 games.
This weekend's series will provide Troy's Tom King an opportunity to close in on more school and conference records. King is just four hits shy of the school record for hits in a season (90), set just last year by Adam Godwin. King is also just 22 total bases shy of the school record (158) and is five doubles away from the sun Belt Conference mark (32). King is also 17 RBI shy of the school record for RBI in a season.
