Paws Up Preview – FIU Baseball vs Bethune-Cookman

MIAMI, FL – After a successful Opening weekend, FIU head coach Rich Witten and his ball club take the road to Daytona as they face off against the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats who are 2-1 to begin their season.

In 2023, the Wildcats went 33-27 and 20-9 in the conference, so this will certainly be a better team than LIU which they took on this past weekend.

The Panthers will also see a familiar face on Tuesday in former FIU Panther player and coach Derek Cartaya who spent a good majority of his time here at FIU. Cartaya is now the assistant hitting coach/hitting/infielders.

Through the first three games of the season for Bethune-Cookman, outfielder Daniel Figueroa has had the most at-bats on the team, but has struggled as he went 2-12 with one RBI.

An example of a player who has found more success early would be outfielder Sergio Rivera who went 5-10 with three RBIs.

Only two Bethune-Cookman players have hit a home run this season. Jorge Febo Gonzalez and Jose Gonzalez were the players that went yard for the Wildcats.

As for the Panthers, last season they went 2-0 against the Wildcats. The first game was won convincingly, but game two was a one-run win.

Ryne Guida hit a solo homer in game one and a three-run homer in their second game in Daytona. Along with Guida, Roylan Quevedo had an RBI in the first game and Brendan Roney had an RBI in the second game.

In game one, Jackson Ritchey got the start and went two innings where he struck out four, walked two, and gave up one run off of two hits.

Kevin Martin who is on the current team also pitched, giving the Panthers two shutout innings, walking three and striking out two.

Joel Pineiro, who was returning from Tommy John surgery, gave the Panthers two strong innings, striking out three and didn’t give up a run.

Richie Peña followed him up and went four shutout innings, striking out three and only walking one. All players who pitched in the second game, are on the current team.

A win for the Panthers would put them at 4-0 for the first time since the 2022 season in which they swept the St. Thomas (MN) Tommies.