Sluggers Hicks, Griffin look to tame Tigers in series at Memphis

D.J. Hicks and Jonathan Griffin are well deserving of their "power hitter" monikers, as dubbed by head coach Terry Rooney.

Hicks, the designated hitter, is slugging .579 with seven home runs and Griffin has an obscene .610 slugging percentage with  a team-high 10 homers.

Although Hicks hasn't homered in a hot minute, the pair has been neck-and-neck. When one would homer, the other quickly tied or surpassed.

"A little over a week ago, [Griffin] said he was going to catch me," Hicks said. "I think I was three up on him two weeks ago. He said he was going to catch me and he caught me and took off."

With Griffin's latest bout of power, he leads the team in home runs and he leads Hicks by three.

"Obviously he's pulling away from me," Hicks said after the Knights routed FAU on Tuesday and Griffin sent one hurdling over the left-field fence.

"After that shot, I've got to get back in the weight room and do something different," Hicks said.

Even more than powerful, the pair is consistent.

While Griffin has launched home runs game after game in the past few weeks, Hicks has regular multi-hit games. On Tuesday against FAU, the redshirt sophomore went 3-for-5, hitting two doubles off the wall and bringing in a career-high six RBI.

"Guys got in scoring position for me, that's all I can ask for," Hicks said. "I was able enough just to hit the ball deep enough to hit it over their heads."

Despite the friendly home run derby, Hicks doesn't necessarily try to hit home runs. He said that as long as he and his teammates are getting RBIs that it's all the same.

"Especially after this past weekend [at East Carolina], we needed to make a statement now," Hicks said about the 12-0 victory against FAU, where the Knights had 16 hits and Hicks brought in half of the runs.

The Knights dropped their series at East Carolina with a 5-3 loss on Sunday. The resulting 4-8 Conference USA record left the Knights angry.

"The message when we got back from East Carolina, everybody was down, everybody was mad, everybody was disappointed, and you can put me in that mix too," Rooney said.

Rooney told the team upon the return from East Carolina that the Knights have to continue to believe and they have to continue to get better.

"We have to play the game better," Rooney said. "When you're playing good teams, and look what's happening in C-USA — everybody's beating everybody, but they're all close games."

The Knights head to Memphis (6-3 C-USA) for a three-game series this weekend. The Tigers are fresh off a conference sweep of UAB and they also won two of three against Southern Miss, a team that swept UCF at home.

Despite the records and the statistics, Hicks is optimistic.

"Everything's still in reach," Hicks said. "Twenty games left, that's still a lot of games left, a lot of conference games. We just need to take business on the weekends. Obviously these [non-conference] games are just as important but the weekend's what really counts."

What to watch for

— Ben Lively and Brian Adkins will likely stay in the Friday and Saturday starting roles they had against ECU. Lively and Adkins both have five wins, marking the first time since 2005 that at least two Knights had five or more wins in a season.

— Danny Winkler, who was slated to start in Sunday's series finale against ECU but lost the job to Nick Cicio, pitched five scoreless innings of relief and struck out six. That performance likely earned him the starting role on Easter Sunday.

— Memphis' Chad Zurcher, who leads the nation with a .481 batting average.

— Dan Langfield (2-2), Ryan Holland (4-2) and Clayton Gant (4-1) will likely form Memphis' rotation.