ELLENSBURG, WASH. – The Central Washington University baseball team looks to open up Great Northwest Athletic Conference play this weekend as they are set for a four game series against Saint Martin's University. Although the Wildcats are marked as the home team, the games will be played at Woodinville High School due to weather conditions in Ellensburg (snow).
GAME INFORMATION
Saturday, March 2 | DH at 3:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 3 | DH at 11:00 a.m.
QUOTABLE
"We want to have a good weekend obviously. It's going to be tough to be the home team on the road again but it can't be an excuse for us." CWU Head Coach
Desi Storey said. "Our pitching has been good so we want to see that continue. And on the other end we need more consistency on the offense to take the pressure off our pitching and our defense."
SCOUTING SAINT MARTIN'S
The Saints come into the weekend also opening up their GNAC play and have a 4 and 5 nonconference record. Sant Martian's is coming off of a two game win streak after grabbing wins against The College of Idaho.
Micah McNicoll leads the Saints offense with a batting average of .433 after 30 at-bats. He has already collected six RBI's on the year including one HR and three doubles. McNicoll has also collected four walks and has an on-base percentage of .514.
Isaac Hegamin is another dangerous bat in the lineup having a .417 batting average with a .500 slugging percentage. Hegamin has scored a team high seven runs while collecting 10 hits, two of which were doubles.
Benjamin Wadowski is the pitcher that has the most innings for the Saints starting two games and throwing 13.0 innings. Wadowski has not collected a decision on the year but has collected 8 strikeouts while only giving up three walks.
Aaron Shoup is another pitcher that the Wildcats will more than likely see start one of the games. He has thrown 11 innings and has collected 14 strikeouts while allowing just four walks. Opponents are hitting just .200 against Shoup early on in the season.
In their last game, Garrison Ritter grabbed the win throwing three innings and allowing just two hits. Hegamin went 2-for-2 with two walks and scored three runs. McNicoll collected four hits and drove in four runs in his five plate appearances. Aaron Renaud went 3-for-4 collecting three RBI of his own and even scored two runs.
SEASON UPDATE
Central comes into the series with a record of 3-4-1. The Wildcats last scheduled game was cancelled due to weather conditions. Central did travel down to Oregon on February 16-18 for a four-game series against Corban University and one game against Western Oregon University.
The Wildcats' grabbed three wins and a tie in the Corban series. Game two of the series was called after a rain delay with the game knotted at zero.
Robert Ball leads the team in batting with a .389 mark going snagging seven hits in his 18 plate appearances. Newcomer
Cameron McGrath has proven to be a consistent leadoff hitter collecting 13 hits in his 34 plate appearances.
The Wildcats have combined for 11 extra base hits, including a triple from
Colton Bunt and a home run from
Justin Hampson.
Luke Smith and
Jon Pinto both have a pair of doubles up to this point as well.
Connor Stevenson has picked up right where he left off last year leading the team in innings pitched (10.1) as well as in ERA (0.00).
Tyler Hoefer has come out and proven to be a solid game one starter. He has thrown 9.1 innings this year while grabbing 11 strikeouts.
AJ Wood has proven to be solid out of the bullpen appearing in just two games and throwing 7.1 innings ang leads the team in strikeouts with 12.
