MONMOUTH, Ore. – A battle of the top two Great Northwest Athletic Conference teams from a season ago will square off to open the conference slate this weekend when the Western Oregon University baseball team begins their home portion of the schedule against MSU Billings.
The teams will play a pair of doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday, starting at noon each day.
WOU (2-2) was off this past week after opening the season in California against Fresno Pacific where the Sunbirds won the first two games before the Wolves responded taking the final two games of the series. In the first win of the season, Alan Vasquez dominated tallying 11 strikeouts in leading WOU to the 4-1 victory and helped him being named GNAC Pitcher of the Week. The offense then broke out in the series finale leading WOU to the 9-3 victory.
Senior Connor McCord led the offense through the first four games of the season hitting .571 with eight hits, five doubles, a triple and three RBI, while scoring a trio of runs. He slugged 1.071 and had a .588 on-base percentage. Joshua McIntyre hit .400 in the opening series with six hits, a home run, two RBI and four runs scored. Derek Maiben gives the team three hitting over .300 checking right in at .300 with three hits and three runs scored. Ryan Santa Cruz provided some pop off the bench as he is hitting .500 in four plate appearances with a pair of RBI. WOU is hitting .236 as a team, while the opposition hit just .207 in the first four games.
On the mound, outside of Vasquez picking up the first win of the season, Michael Moore claimed the other win in relief. So far this season he has worked three innings and hasn't allowed a run, along with five strikeouts. Eight pitchers have yet to allow a run so far this season in David Gibons, McCord, Dylan Myers, Moore, Evan Kingma, Justin Dolezal, Logan Hatley and Joe Kinsky. Of that group, five have worked at least two innings with Gibons tossing the most with four as he worked four shutouts innings in the series finale against Fresno Pacific. McCord not only did well at the plate, but he threw two strong innings collecting three strikeouts and allowed just a hit and a walk. WOU has a 4.13 team ERA, while opponents hold a 3.18 team ERA. The staff has 38 strikeouts so far in 32.2 innings of work.
Last year, WOU went 5-4 against MSU Billings as the Wolves went 3-1 in Monmouth, while the Yellowjackets came back to split the four-game series in Billings. The teams then met in the GNAC Tournament in which MSU Billings claimed the victory in Portland. Since 2008, WOU is 33-12 at home and 33-16 in Billings in the series.
The Yellowjackets are off to a 8-2 start to the season that includes a recent three-game sweep of Colorado School of Mines in Billings this past weekend in which the 'Jackets outscored the nationally-ranked Orediggers 42-22. The start to the season went well as MSU Billings won two of three over Point Loma on the road and lost the final game in extra innings.
MSU Billings is hitting .330 as a team, while opponents hold a .247 average. Six regulars in the lineup are hitting at least .333 led by Sam Powers' .520 average. He adds three home runs and eight RBI. Daniel Cipriano, who has already been named GNAC Player of the Week twice this season, is hitting .385 with five home runs and 17 RBI. Eight players in the lineup have a home run, while seven have multi-home runs as the 'Jackets have hit 20 as a team this season.
On the mound, MSU Billings has 5.74 team ERA, while opponents have a 9.33 team ERA. Matthew Houlihan leads the team with a 2.08 ERA in 13 innings of work and is 2-0 on the season. In relief, Sam Muskat has a pair of wins in 5.1 innings. The Yellowjackets are currently receiving votes in the latest NCBWA Poll where if the poll extended past the top-25 they would be ranked 30th.
The series will have live stats all four games, while the Sunday games will have both video and live stats that can be found here.
