CARY, N.C. – The Southern New Hampshire baseball team is set to open play Sunday in the 2022 DII Baseball Championship.  The Penmen open against Angelo State at 1:30 p.m. at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C.  The Penmen are making a second consecutive appearance in the Championship, and fourth in program history (2012, 2018, 2021).

SNHU has been seeded fourth, and the Rams are fifth.  North Greenville earned the top seed followed by Point Loma as the two-seed, No. 3 Southern Arkansas, No. 6 Rollins, No. 7 Illinois Springfield, and No. 8 West Chester.  
 
SERIES HISTORY:
This will be the first meeting between Southern New Hampshire and Angelo State.   

THE ROAD TO CARY:
SNHU went 21-3 in the Northeast-10 Conference's Northeast Division, earning the top-seed in the post-season tournament.  The Penmen earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament with an NE10 Championship win over Assumption University on May 14.

The NCAA East Regional 1 was held at the University of Wilmington in New Castle, Del.  The Penmen eliminated the host Wildcats and then swept two games from NE10 rival Southern Connecticut State.

The East Super Regional with Molloy College was a rematch of last season, and the Penmen again won in three games.  The teams split a pair on May 27 at Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester, N.H. before SNHU earned the trip to Cary with a 7-3 win over the Lions last Sunday in a game played at Franklin Pierce University.
 
HEAD COACH SCOTT LOISEAU
Head coach Scott Loiseau was selected as the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) Division II Coach of the Year, it was announced Friday.

Loiseau, who took over the SNHU program in 2009, claims his fifth NEIBA Coach of the Year honor, after also taking home the accolade in 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2021. A five-time NE10 Coach of the Year, including this season, Loiseau has guided SNHU to a 46-10 record that has included the program's fourth NE10 Championship and NCAA East Region titles. The 46 victories are the second most in program history and just four shy of the 2016 squad's 50 wins.

PENMEN STATS:
SNHU has hit a program record 79 home runs this season, led by senior Sam Henrie  (Middleboro, Mass.) with 14.  His 14 homers tie teammate senior Dakota Mulcay (Goffstown, N.H.) for most homers in a season.  Mulcay hit 14 last season, and his 37 career homers and 176 RBI are new program marks. 

Two SNHU pitchers were named first-team All-Conference.  Graduate student Josh Roberge (Chelmsford, Mass.) and relief specialist Trevor Anibal (Bedford, N.H.)  Roberge, who joined the Penmen program this year from Wheaton College, is 9-4 with a 3.19 ERA.  His 95 strikeouts in 87.1 innings pitched lead the team.  Anibal, a sophomore, is 6-0 with a 1.46 ERA and a team-leading four saves.
Roberge and Anibal are joined on the NEIBA DII All-New England team by redshirt sophomore Nick Schwartz (Massapequa, N.Y.) and redshirt sophomore Cristian Mercedes (Providence, R.I.)
Schwartz has a team-best .406 batting average and a .502 on-base percentage in his first season with SNHU. Splitting time at both designated hitter and catcher, Schwartz has racked up 28 extra-base hits including 18 doubles, a triple, and nine home runs. Mercedes is batting .306 with 20 extra-base hits, including six home runs, 43 RBI, 51 runs scored and 16 stolen bases.

The Penmen scored 462 runs this season (8.25 per game) and the team ERA of 3.42 ranks fifth in the nation.  

ABOUT ANGELO STATE:
The Rams (50-12) earned a second consecutive trip to Cary with a Super Regional win over Colorado Mesa.  Angelo State won the Lone Star Conference regular-season title, the LSU tournament title, and the South Central Regional Championship.
The Rams have scored more runs than any other team in the country with 629 on the season. Their average of 10.7 runs per game also leads Division II.
 
ASU is third in DII in batting average (.362), has also recorded the second-most hits (697), and ranks first in doubles with 162.
Justin Lee was named to the 2022 NCAA Division II All-American First-Team by the American Baseball Coaches Association.  Lee is hitting .453, which ranks third in the nation.   His OBP of .564 ranks second among Div. II players.
 
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