NORTHBOROUGH, Mass. – The Saint Anselm College baseball team will take on Saint Michael's College in a single nine-inning game at 6 p.m. on Saturday at the New England Baseball Complex.

Saint Anselm had a four-game series with Assumption postponed this week, but the Purple Knights found their way onto the Hawks schedule for a single game to be played at a neutral site. No spectators of any kind will be permitted at the facility.

The Hawks own a 3-2 overall record, taking three out of four games against American International on Mar. 13-14 before falling to Stonehill in a nine-inning affair on Mar. 20. Saint Michael's will be making its debut on Saturday after competing in just two games during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.

Live Stats will be available for the game, courtesy of Saint Michael's.

SCOUTING SAINT ANSELM

• Against Stonehill last time out, the Hawks scored eight runs in the top of the ninth inning to take a 9-8 lead, but a walk-off, two-run, two-out double by Stonehill carried the hosts to victory. Trailing by as many as seven entering the inning, Saint Anselm pushed across eight runs with the help of five hits, there walks and two hit-by-pitches.
• Junior Kyle Maurice (Exeter, N.H.), the reigning Northeast-10 Conference Player of the Week at the time, slugged his third home run of the season to lead off the inning before Stonehill struck two batters with the bases loaded. Senior Salvatore Pezzolla (East Greenbush, N.Y.), whose two-out, two-run single to center field brought the game even, 8-8. Sophomore Mike Borrelli (Salisbury, Mass.) followed with a single of his own, pushing home the go-ahead run.
• While the team's statistics through just five games are a small sample size, the Hawks are currently batting .340 on the season with 54 hits in 139 at-bats. Only three Saint Anselm teams have hit over .300 on the season – in 1995, the Hawks batted .314 (327-for-1,043) and, most recently, hit .313 in 2001 (459-for-1,467).
• With 13 home runs through the first four games, Saint Anselm has already exceeded its long-ball output from the most recent complete season of games in 2019. Only in 10 seasons prior has Saint Anselm slugged 20 or more home runs. In fact, the Hawks combined for only eight home runs in the 2016 and 2018 seasons, combined.
• Borrelli ranks fourth in NCAA Division II by averaging 0.8 home runs per game. With four home runs through his first five games, he is the first student-athlete at Saint Anselm to match that output since Nick Bragole '17 accomplished that feat as a senior. No student-athlete on the Hilltop has hit more than four home runs since Robert Kelly '13 homered seven times in 2013.
• To open the season, Saint Anselm picked up a 4-2 victory in the seven-inning opener on Saturday before walking off the Yellow Jackets in dramatic fashion in eight innings. Down 7-4 with one out left in the seventh inning of game two, the Hawks tied things up and used a walk-off home run by junior Dan Baker (Reading, Mass.) in the bottom of the eighth to win by an 8-7 margin.
• With the two victories against American International in the season-opening twinbill, the Hawks were able to sweep a doubleheader against a single Northeast-10 Conference opponent for the first time since Apr. 25, 2015.
• Maurice batted .462 with six hits, two doubles, two home runs and 11 runs batted in across the first four games of his Saint Anselm tenure. Maurice helped the Hawks offense total 12 home runs in the first four games of the season and his team-record 10 RBI against American International in Sunday's opening game fueled a team-record 23-0 victory.
• Maurice was named Northeast-10 Conference Player of the Week on Mar. 15. He went on to capture National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association East Region Player of the Week on Thursday.
• Freshman Zack Clough (Newbury, Mass.), a freshman outfielder, earned NE10 Rookie of the Week honors that same day after posting six hits, including a double on Saturday against the Yellow Jackets while logging three consecutive two-hit games. He drove in three runs on Sunday in game one against the Yellow Jackets and finished the weekend with eight runs scored, three walks and two stolen bases.
• Sophomore pitcher Dylan Bedder (New Providence, N.J.) and Borrelli were named to the NE10 Weekly Honor Roll on Mar. 15 for their contributing performances over the weekend. Bedder struck out a career-high eight batters and limited the Yellow Jackets to just three hits in his season debut.

PREVIEWING THE PURPLE KNIGHTS

• Saint Michael's has played just two games since the start of the 2020 season. The Purple Knights were swept by Bowdoin in games played at the very same facility as Saturday's game against the Hawks, the New England Baseball Complex.
• The Purple Knights, under second-year skipper Jim Neidlinger, brought in an 11-man freshman class which stands as the program's largest in three seasons.
• Saint Michael's set a school record for pitching strikeouts in 2019 for the second straight season (232), breaking the mark by one strikeout in 29 fewer innings.
• Most recently, the Purple Knights posted a full season record of 9-28 in 2019. Two of their three wins came at the expense of Saint Anselm – the team logged 7-6 and 7-4 wins toward the end of the 2019 season.
• Julien Giroux-Harvey, who enters his senior campaign at Saint Michael's, smacked a go-ahead, three-run home run against Saint Anselm in his team's win on Apr. 30, 2019. He has three career long balls for the Purple Knights.

ALL-TIME vs. SAINT MICHAEL'S

• The Hawks enjoy a 25-20 overall record against their Green Mountain State counterparts. The Purple Knights, however, are riding a two-game winning streak over Saint Anselm with the pair of victories in 2019.
• The very first meeting between both programs is thought to have been May 29, 1916. In that contest, Saint Anselm fell to Saint Michael's by a 4-0 margin in Colchester, Vt. The hosts finished the season with a 7-3 record.
• After a lengthy hiatus, Saint Michael's brought back its baseball program prior to the 1990 season. That year, the Hawks split with the Purple Knights in a doubleheader played in Colchester. The Hawks fell by a 5-4 score in the opener before rallying for a 11-1 win in the second game.
• Saint Michael's elected to play an independent schedule from 1999 to 2011, rejoining the NE10 in 2012.