The State University of New York at New Paltz baseball looks to add to its win total Feb. 26 and 27 as it heads down to Virginia Beach to take on Virginia-Wesleyan and Ithaca College in three games over the weekend. 

Due to the pending storm hitting the Northeast, the Hawks' Virginia Beach weekend was moved up with them facing the hosting Marlins at 11 a.m. before playing the Bombers at 2:30 p.m. and will conclude the weekend against Ithaca Saturday at 11 a.m.

SUNY New Paltz comes into the weekend with a 2-1 record, having won its first two contests over Mount Saint Mary before falling to St. Mary's of Maryland. 

The team opened the season with two big wins against the Knights Feb. 19 and 20 by scores of 15-1 and 7-3, but in the Hawks' second game of their doubleheader Feb. 20, fell to the hosting Seahawks, 8-5. In the bottom half of the eighth inning in their first game against the Knights, SUNY New Paltz scored five runs to help widen the gap and secure the victory as Dean Stalzer hit his third of three home runs on the day. In the 7-3 victory in their second game against Mount Saint Mary, three runs in the top of the second inning and two in the top of the fourth provided the catalyst for the win. In the weekend finale, four first inning runs and three sixth inning runs for St. Mary's of Maryland propelled them to a 7-2 lead, and though the Hawks scored four runs in the eighth inning, it was not enough. The Seahawks tallied 15 hits on the day to SUNY New Paltz's seven in the three-run victory.  

Through three games, Stalzer has a team-leading three home runs and 10 RBI, and the graduate student is ahead of his 2021 pace when he batted .263 with five home runs and 17 RBI. He was 0-for-4 against St. Mary's of Maryland, and looks to get back on track this weekend, as will the team, whose seven hits in the weekend finale came in 34 at-bats for a collective batting average of just .206.  

SUNY New Paltz will take its 2-1 record into its game against a Virginia-Wesleyan team that has won three-of-four games to start its 2022 campaign. The Marlins opened the season with two big victories, 8-3 against Castleton University and 15-10 against Mississippi University. After stumbling 15-5 against Huntington College, they tallied a dominant 13-3 win over Mount St. Joseph University. Garrett Lyons and Jake Ness both lead the team with six hits, while Trent Hanchey and Matt Sinko have registered five. Lyons leads the team in doubles with five, while Sinko has nine RBI. 

While the Hawks have never faced the Marlins, they have met Ithaca College 15 times throughout their history, with games dating back to 2003. The past has not been kind to SUNY New Paltz in the matchup, which has lost all 15 contests, the last of which occurred at Ithaca on May 1, 2018, a 6-1 loss. The Bombers' game against the Hawks is their season opener. Last year, they compiled a record of 16-12-1.

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