The Brown & White

The baseball team will face Lafayette Leopards in the championship game of the Liberty Bell Classic on Tuesday. The game will be played at Citizens Bank Park, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Leopards beat the Mountain Hawks 7-3 in last year's Liberty Bell Classic final. The Hawks went 1-5 against the Leopards last season.

En route to the championship game, the Hawks defeated Villanova University 3-2 and Temple University 17-15.

Lafayette defeated the University of Pennsylvania 6-5 to reach the final.

Lehigh enters the game coming off of a four game set against the Navy Midshipmen. The Hawks lost both games of Saturday's doubleheader, losing the first game 5-2 and the second 4-1.

Freshman second baseman Brendan McGaheran was 2-3 with one RBI and one run scored in game one and 1-3 in game two. He leads the team with a batting average of .330 on the season, and is in the top 10 of the Patriot League.

The Hawks are 0-6 in league play and are 13-17 on the season.

The Leopards are 13-10 on the season, and 2-4 in league play.

Freshman pitcher Mike Lebo said the Hawks are confident in their ability to beat Lafayette.

"It's Lafayette, we want to win," Lebo said. "We're just really pumped up, and we feel that we have a real good shot at beating them."

Last season, Lehigh was 1-5 against the Leopards, winning only one out of four games in a series at Lafayette in addition to losing to the Leopards in the Liberty Bell final.

Freshman Jim McConlogue said the team is focusing more on preparing for the rest of the season rather than focusing solely on Tuesday's game.

"As a team, we're not focusing just on this one game against Lafayette," McConlogue said. "We still have the rest of the season ahead of us, and we are looking to turn it around. Our coaching staff also feels the same way. Our season is bigger than this individual game and series against Lafayette."

In addition to McGaheran, Lehigh will look for freshman outfielder Andy Russell and senior outfielder Joe Ercolano to contribute in the championship.

Russell is hitting .298 on the season, second behind McGaheran, and has one home run, 18 runs scored and 15 RBIs.

Ercolano has a .296 batting average on the season. He also has three homeruns, 23 runs scored and 20 RBIs, all of which lead the team.

Lafayette will look to junior outfielder Chris Luick and junior first baseman Joe Ezekiel to lead the team.

Luick is leading the team with a .360 batting average, while Ezekiel leads the team with three home runs and 17 RBIs.

Tuesday's game is set to begin at 8 p.m.