The South Florida baseball team will look to put Stetson’s lights out this weekend’s two-game series against the Hatters. Only this time, as opposed to last season, they’ll try to do it figuratively, not literally.

In case you don’t remember, during Stetson’s March 27 visit last season a power outage at Red McEwen Stadium forced the postponement of the game.

Once again both teams will begin their season with a two-day series as they did in 2001 when the Bulls opened last years’ 33-31 season on the road in DeLand.

Preseason practices have helped coach Eddie Cardieri finalize the starting roster … almost. Cardieri has stayed adamant that the weekend pitching rotation is going to take some in-game evaluation to decide.

“We have six guys to choose from to come up with three or four starters,” Cardieri said. “There are six guys who can go out there and start for us. We will come up with four guys and the other two will go to the bullpen, which will definitely fortify our pen up a little bit.”

First in the evaluations this weekend is right-hander Jason Bartz, who will pitch Saturday against Stetson’s Brian Sullivan. Bartz was 4-3 last season with a 6.89 ERA.

Sullivan, also a right-hander, is in his second season with the Hatters after transferring from Indian River Community College. Last season Sullivan made 15 starts and had a 6-3 record with a 3.69 ERA. In his last start of the 2001 season at the NCAA regional playoffs in Miami, Sullivan threw a four-hit shutout against Bucknell.

“Sullivan’s a pitcher, not a thrower,” Cardieri said. “He throws about 86 mph, but he’s got three pitches that he throws for strikes anytime in the count. Those are the guys that have the most success in college baseball.”

Jon Uhl will get the start on Sunday for the Bulls against the junior transfer Mike Wiley.

Uhl is coming off of a 4-5 season last year, earning All-Freshman honors in his redshirt season. Uhl was also the Sunday starter for the majority of the 2001 season.

• The Bulls will host Stetson Saturday and Sunday at Red McEwen Stadium. Both games start at 1 p.m.
• Jarrett Guthrie covers baseball and can be reached at oracleguthrie@yahoo.com