With less than a full year at Florida Atlantic under his belt, sophomore Marc Stewart is already becoming the go-to guy on the mound for head baseball coach John McCormack.

Stewart, a Hillsborough Community College transfer, holds a record of 5-0. More impressively however, the Owls have won all eight games that he’s started.

“He’s kept us in games, so it gives the offense a chance,” McCormack said. “If you look at his numbers, his ERA is low, he gives up some hits but doesn’t walk a lot of guys. He doesn’t get into a lot of trouble, so it gives us an opportunity to score some runs and the guys really like playing behind him.”

Stewart holds the third best ERA in Conference USA (2.15) and has held opponents to the fifth-lowest batting average in the conference (.221), while recording the second-most wins.

Besides his outing against the University of Alabama at Birmingham in which Stewart allowed three earned runs, no opposing offense has been able to score more than two earned runs in any of his seven other starts. He credits his success to his “preparation and coming out [to the field] and just getting ready to play and getting the mindset ready.”

Stewart has earned the stopper role this year as McCormack has called on the right-hander on three separate occasions to start following a loss in the team’s prior game.

“We’ve had a little bit of an issue of Friday nights and he’s been able to right the ship for us on Saturdays,” McCormack said.

Stewart isn’t new to the success he’s found on the mound. Last season at Hillsborough, his ERA sat under 2.00. In high school, Stewart held a record of 7-1 while sporting an ERA of 0.33. The only change he’s experienced on the mound is his surroundings.

“I’ve been having fun pitching here,” he said. “I’d say just a little bit more people and a nice stadium in the background.”

Stewart is the projected pitcher for the Owls game at Marshall University on Saturday, April 16. The three-game series between the two teams begins on Friday.

Brendan Feeney is the sports editor of the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @feeney42.