Fresh off sweep at Marshall, JMU looks to carry momentum into homestand

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - With only seven games left in the regular season, every game is critical for the James Madison baseball team.

The Dukes currently sit in sixth place in the Sun Belt Conference. As of now, they’d be locked into the Sun Belt Tournament.

However, there is a log jam of teams still in the mix. If you remove Southern Miss and Coastal Carolina, who are tied for first, nine teams, including James Madison, are separated by just a handful of games.

It’s why last weekends sweep at Marshall was a critical three-game stretch for the Dukes if they want to participate in the conference tournament.

“I was proud of how we played,” said JMU head coach Marlin Ikenberry discussing the Marshall series. “They got a pretty deep pitching staff with some really good arms.”

JMU outscored Marshall 28-13 in the series. Ikenberry believes his team is becoming more consistent. Infielder Mason Dunaway agrees.

“As the season has gone on we’ve been talking about the approach and how the approach wins out,” said Dunaway. “I think that when we execute the approach we always talk about, we score a lot of runs. We did a very good job last weekend doing that.”

JMU faces Old Dominion at home this weekend in another critical three-game series. The Monarchs are still in the mix for postseason play, trailing JMU by one game in the loss column.

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