Yellow Jackets Fly To Frank Eck Stadium

April 6, 2017

By Michael Scholl

Five Things To Know

• Georgia Tech visits Notre Dame for the first time in program history this weekend for a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference series at Frank Eck Stadium. The full series will be available on ACC Network Extra (via WatchESPN), WatchND (free audio) and 103.1 FM in South Bend.

  Friday is Free Kids Fridays, as children are admitted free of charge. Golf Appreciation Day has been moved to Saturday. Prizes will be given out through the course of the game courtesy of the Warren Golf Course. Saturday is also Dads & Daugthers Day at The Eck, with fathers and their daughters admitted free. On Sunday, kids can run the bases postgame.

• The Irish trail the all-time series with the Yellow Jackets, 8-5, with all 13 meetings having come in Atlanta. The Irish won the first meeting in 1924, 4-3. Georgia Tech took a win in 1925 and a pair of wins in 1926. The teams played twice in 1930, with the Irish winning both contests. The series took a hiatus until 1966, when the teams split a pair. of games in Atlanta. They met again for two games in 1996, resulting in a Yellow Jacket sweep. The first series after the Irish joined the ACC came in 2015 in Atlanta, with Notre Dame taking game one, 3-2, in 10 innings, before the Yellow Jackets won 11-7 and 4-1.
• Nick Podkul has rewarded Mik Aoki since moving into the leadoff spot by carrying a 15-game on-base streak into the Georgia Tech series. Podkul is reaching base at a .400 clip over the stretch, which dates back to the third game of the series at Clemson on March 12 and is the longest such streak by an Irish player this season. It marks the second consecutive year Podkul has had an on-base streak of 15 games, as he accomplished that feat last season. In 2016, his 15-game on-base streak was the third longest by an Irish player that year trailing only Cavan Biggio (21 games) and Jake Shepski (16 games).
• Graduate student Michael Hearne, slated to start game two on Saturday against the Yellow Jackets, has been one of the most accurate pitchers in the ACC this season. The southpaw ranks second in the league in walks per nine innings at 1.10, trailing only Virginia’s Derek Casey (0.86 walks/nine innings). Hearne’s mark ranks 26th nationally. In addition, Hearne is 10th in the league in strikeout-to-walk ratio at 4.50.
• The Irish will be looking to continue success against teams not ranked in the top 25 this weekend against the Yellow Jackets. Dating back to a March 4 win over Rhode Island, Notre Dame has posted a 10-2 mark against unranked teams. The two losses in the stretch came in ACC games against Pittsburgh and NC State, where the Irish still took two-of-three to win each of those series.

— ND —

Michael Scholl joined Fighting Irish Media in August 2016, coordinating communications for the baseball program and assisting with the football team at his alma mater. The South Bend native earned a degree in political science from the College of Arts & Letters in 2009 before going on to work in athletics communications at Providence College, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati.