MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College baseball team will begin its 2021 season this weekend, taking on American International College on Saturday and Sunday in doubleheader action from the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough, Mass.

SAINT ANSELM COLLEGE HAWKS
Roster | Schedule & Results | 2020 Statistics | News

AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE YELLOW JACKETS
Roster | Schedule & Results | 2021 Statistics | News

The Hawks and Yellow Jackets will meet on Saturday to play a doubleheader beginning at 12 p.m. with a nine-inning game. Per Northeast-10 Conference protocol, the second game of each doubleheader will be a seven-inning contest. The teams will battle once again on Sunday at high noon.

American International began its season on Wednesday, Mar. 10 at Pace, falling by a 9-1 margin in non-league play. Saturday's games will mark the conference-opening games for both programs. No spectators of any kind will be admitted at the New England Baseball Complex, including students, staff, faculty and parents.

Live statistics of the games will be provided throughout the weekend. Saturday's games will mark the first intercollegiate contests for Saint Anselm since Mar. 11, 2020, a span of 367 days.

HAWKS NOTES

• Saint Anselm, picked to finish sixth in the Northeast Division of the NE10 in the league's preseason coaches' poll, enters play with a 42-man roster this season, including 21 pitchers. With over 40 student-athletes, it is one of the largest baseball rosters in recent memory.
• Among the returning position players, junior Matt Collins (Beverly, Mass.) led the Hawks with 14 hits in 45 at-bats last season, posting a .311 batting average in 12 games. He posted three extra-base hits and drove in nine runs, tying for second place on last year's roster, and is the team's active leader in career stolen bases (11).
• Collins is riding an active seven-game hitting streak that started on Mar. 1, 2020 against Rockhurst. In that span, he recorded a .333 batting average with exactly 10 hits in 30 at-bats.
• Senior Salvatore Pezzolla (East Greenbush, N.Y.), in just seven games, posted nine runs batted in across only 27 at-bats.
• Senior Max Silverman (Westford, Mass.) is the team's active leader in games played, seeing action in 51 games entering the 2021 season. In his career on the Hilltop, he has posted a .252 batting average with 11 extra-base hits.
• Senior Will Conaton (Windham, N.H.) leads all Saint Anselm pitchers with 22 career appearances, logging a 3.98 earned-run average in just over 83 career innings. He has fanned 76 batters and has earned 14 starts for the Hawks, the most among active student-athletes.
• Under the guidance of first-year Head Coach Jerod Edmondson '06, Saint Anselm posted its best start in 28 seasons last spring after opening the campaign with a 4-0 record. The Hawks found themselves in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) East Region Poll, ranking 10th in the region.
• Through the team's 4-0 start, the Hawks outscored their opposition by a combined 34-to-11 margin. Saint Anselm finished its year on a two-game winning streak, defeating Northern State by a 10-2 margin on Friday, Mar. 6 before posting a 6-1 victory over West Virginia Wesleyan on Saturday, Mar. 7.

SCOUTING THE YELLOW JACKETS

• The Yellow Jackets were picked to finish sixth in the NE10's Southwest Division. American International posted a 4-6 overall record in 2020 before the pandemic-shortened season came to a close in mid-March.
• American International played Pace this past Wednesday, falling by a 9-1 margin. The Setters pushed across three runs in the home half of the third inning and never looked back, limiting the Yellow Jackets to just six hits, including just one in the final half of the game.
• Pitcher Joe Oliver struck out the side for the Yellow Jackets against Pace on Wednesday. Graduate student Matt Costanza drove in his team's only run.
• Led by long-time Head Coach Nick Callini, AIC boasts a roster of 50 student-athletes in 2021. 17 of those 50 student-athletes are freshmen.

ALL TIME vs. AMERICAN INT'L

• The Yellow Jackets hold the all-time series lead, 43-32-1. Most recently, the Hawks split a doubleheader on Mar. 23, 2019 in Springfield, Mass.
• In the last game played on that date, American International walked off with a 4-3 victory as Mike Nallan stroked a single to right-center to drive in the game-winning run.
• The very first game in the all-time series was played on Aug. 22, 1983 and was an 11-1 victory for American Int'l at Sullivan Park.
• The squads have split the last 10 meetings, with each program claiming five victories since the start of the 2011 season.