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HAMDEN, CT—NJIT baseball will visit first-time opponent Quinnipiac for doubleheaders Friday and Saturday afternoon, dropping the curtain on both the baseball season and a historic 2014-15 year for NJIT Athletics.
 
The doubleheaders at Quinnipiac, which is located in Hamden, near New Haven, CT, are scheduled for a noon start on both days.
 
NJIT and Quinnipiac enter the final regular season weekend with similar overall won-lost records. The Highlanders are 22-21-1 and the Bobcats are 25-23.
 
Quinnipiac, which plays in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, holds a 15-9 record in league play and will continue as one of six teams to earn spots in the MAAC postseason tournament (May 20-23).
 
MAAC teams play a prominent role on the schedule of Division I Independent NJIT, which is 4-5-1 so far against teams from the local conference.
 
Quinnipiac has a team batting average of .265, topped by Vincent Guglietti (.322) and Mike Palladino (.320). Guglietti has hit nine of the team's 22 home runs and his 38 runs batted in are 10 more than the next QU player, Matthew Batten (28). Louis Iannotti has driven in 27 runs.
 
On the speed side, Palladino has 22 steals and Batten has 20.
 
When it comes to pitching, Thomas Jenkins and Robert Hitt each have five wins, followed closely by Justin Thomas (4). Jenkins and Hitt each have sub-4.00 earned run averages.
 
Heading into the final weekend, the Highlanders, with a team batting average of .282, have four regular starters batting over .300, topped by senior Ed Charlton's .320. Charlton also leads the team in home runs (8), runs batted in (32) and has 14 steals and 13 doubles (both second on the team).
 
Sophomore SS Bryan Haberstroh is the doubles leader (14) and is second with five home runs, while batting .288. He has driven in 26 runs, tied for third on NJIT.
 
Senior 3B Mike Rampone, NJIT's all-time career hits leader with 216, has 10 doubles and 26 RBI to go with his .314 batting average.
 
Stephan Halibej is another important bat for the Highlanders, entering the final weekend with a .304 average and 27 runs batted in.
 
Several freshmen have been consistently productive for NJIT, with Jesse Uttendorfer, an injury redshirt a year ago, batting .317 and driving in 23 runs to go with a team-best 15 steals. Evan Pietronico has been a solid .287 with seven doubles and Matt McKinnon has knocked home 18 runs.
 
The Highlanders, who came into 2015 with a lot of questions on the mound, have found plentiful answers in the freshman class.
 
Before looking at the newcomers, however, you have to look at the veterans who came through in a big way.
 
Junior lefty Ian Bentley a strong 6-3 with two saves and a 3.24 ERA in 2014, has been the ace, taking the next step to a school Division I season-record seven wins (7-3), while lowering his ERA to 3.07.
 
Tyler Kapp, a redshirt senior, became a regular reliever for the first time in 2014 and appeared in 18 games, with one save and a team-best 2.07 ERA. This season he has seven saves and became the school's Division I career leader in that department.
 
And Joe Fasano, who missed the entire 2014 season following arm surgery, offered early-season stability to the young pitching staff, winning three of his first four starts.
 
But NJIT has utilized 12 pitchers this season and nine are rookies, an extraordinary number.
 
Johnny Malatesta, who also plays in the field, has made 10 mound appearances (nine as a starter) and fashioned a 5-4 record with a 3.21 ERA. He had a 3-hit shutout against Fairleigh Dickinson as a season highlight.
 
Sean Lubreski has made nine starts and owns a 4-4 record. His four wins have come in his last six starts.
 
Burly John Saviano has 11 appearances (two starts) and opponents are batting a combined .210 against him. That's an impressive number, but, remarkably, just third best in his class. Brent Jones is holding opponents to a .206 average and Tommy Derer is limiting foes to a .204 average.
 
Derer, from Philadelphia, has a team-best 2.04 earned run average and a 2-3 won-lost record with two saves. Derer simply does not allow much traffic on the bases. In 25.2 innings, he has surrendered 19 hits and walked seven, while hitting one batter. Of the 19 hits, 18 have been singles, with one home run. Fifteen of his 19 appearances have been scoreless ones and he also has 15 appearances with either one or zero hits allowed.
 
Aside from all the individual numbers, 22-21-1 NJIT, by at least splitting the four games at Quinnipiac, can clinch its first overall winning record at the Division I level. The closest the Highlanders have come to that feat was in 2012, when they finished 25-27.
 
Regardless of this weekend's baseball results, 2014-15 was a year where NJIT athletics made a broad-based mark on the national scene. Among the most noteworthy:
 
--Men's soccer played its first-ever home game against a team ranked in the national Top 25 and the Highlanders defeated #22 Navy, 1-0, on September 20, 2014. The Highlanders, 6-0-3 in nine home games, were ranked in the National Soccer Coaches Association Regional Poll for seven weeks.
 
--Men's basketball made national headlines with a 72-70 upset win on December 6 at Michigan, ranked #17 in the AP national poll and #16 in the USA Today poll. The victory brought unprecedented media coverage to the Highlanders and to NJIT.
 
Men's basketball went on to post a 21-12 record that included the deepest postseason run in school history, as the Highlanders played in a national Division I postseason tournament for the first and went all the way to the semifinals of the CIT.
 
--They didn't win, but men's volleyball came tantalizingly close at #8 Penn State, losing in five sets, with a 13-15 loss in the decisive fifth set.
 
NJIT, which plays in the same league (Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) as Penn State, had not won a match vs. the Nittany Lions since 1998 and the Highlanders previously had taken just one set since 2000 against the East's dominant program. Penn State went on to capture its 17th consecutive EIVA crown and ended its season with a loss in the NCAA national semifinals.
 
--One of the emergent programs in NJIT athletics was fencing, with the men defeating nationally-ranked foes and receiving votes themselves in the national poll. Both the men's and women's teams were bolstered by an influx of international-level competitors in the first-year class.
 
The NJIT men placed 12th in the team rankings at the NCAA championships hosted by Ohio State in late March.
 
But the individual highlight came from Julie Garcia, a newcomer from Madrid, Spain. Julia, whose weapon is the epee, won the silver medal in the 2015 NCAA championship, the highest showing ever for an NJIT fencer at the NCAAs.