Huskies to Florida Invitational

The UConn baseball team is traveling to Florida for the third time in as many weeks to play in the Bright House Invitational Tournament hosted by Stetson University in Deland, Fla.  The Huskies will take on Ohio State on Friday at 1 p.m. and Central Michigan on Saturday before taking on the host Stetson on Sunday.

This is the final regular season tournament that UConn will be participating in this season.

UConn (3-3) won two of three in last week’s WaWa Weekend Classic hosted by the University of Central Florida, a future Big East foe, in Orlando.  The Huskies lost to the host Knights to open the weekend, but salvaged the weekend by beating Troy, 13-8, on Saturday and sneaking by and shutting out Texas Tech in 11 innings, 1-0.

Through six games this season, the Huskies have scored 32 runs and have given up 34.  The UConn offense is led by Big East Preseason Player of the Year LJ Mazzilli, who has been named to two different preseason All-American teams as well.  The No. 3 hitter is batting .345 with one home run, three RBI and a team-leading six runs scored.  The Husky hitters are batting .258 on 59 hits thus far this year.

The UConn pitching staff has found moderate success in the young 2013 campaign.  The Huskies will go with the same trio that pitched in the WaWa Classic.  Left-hander Anthony Marzi, who will be facing Ohio State to kick off the tournament, has struggled in the early season with an 0-2 record and an 11.05 ERA.  

However, the rest of the rotation has pitched well despite Marzi’s poor performances.  No. 2 starter Carson Cross (1-0, 2.77 ERA, 11 Ks) had a dominant performance against Troy in the WaWa Classic, going a career-high seven innings while striking out a career-high seven Trojans.  Cross also retired 12-straight at one point.  Cross will take on CMU.  

Rounding out the rotation is lefty Brian Ward.  In his no-decision against Texas Tech, Ward went seven shutout innings, walked two and struck out five. 

Ohio State got the best of UConn in their last meeting in 2012.  The Buckeyes won 9-5 in a six-inning game as part of the Big East/Big Ten Challenge in Clearwater, Fla.  Marzi toed the rubber against Ohio State and struck out five over 4.2 innings in his first collegiate start.

UConn is 3-7 all-time against the Buckeyes.