ELLENSBURG, WASH – The Central Washington University baseball team will have its first games of the season in Ellensburg. The Wildcats will host Northwest Nazarene University for a four-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference series starting this Friday.
GAME INFORMATION
Friday, March 29
DH Starting at 12:00 p.m.
Ellensburg, WA
CWU Baseball Field
LIVE STATS |
LIVE VIDEO
Saturday, March 30
DH Starting at 12:00 p.m.
Ellensburg, WA
CWU Baseball Field
LIVE STATS |
LIVE VIDEO
QUOTEABLE
"This weekend will be huge for us," CWU Head Coach
Desi Storey said. "It is going to be very important for us to get back on track after our last couple of weekends. We had a tough time getting the timely hits so we will be focusing a lot this week on situational hitting. I think we are still in a good spot this early on in the season. I am excited to see how we respond this weekend."
SCOUTING NORTHWEST NAZARENE
The Nighthawks come into the weekend with a 12-12 overall record including an 8-8 conference record. NNU is fresh off of a three-win weekend against Western Oregon University. The series included a one run extra inning win, a three-run win, and another one run win to close out the series. Central is just three and four in one run games this year.
The NNU offense is led by senior Kyle Redford who has started all 24 games on the year. Redford is hitting an impressive .330 in his 88 at-bats. The senior also leads the team in runs scored (20), total bases (41), walks (16), and stolen bases (9).
Another Nighthawk hitter to watch is junior Parker Price. Price is tied for the team lead in homeruns (three on the season) and leads the team in at-bats (90), triples (2), runs batted in (17), and is hitting .278 on the season.
The Northwest Nazarene pitching staff is led by Cooper Webster. Webster has started six games and has thrown 32 innings striking out a team high 27 batters. The junior has also given up a team-high 15 walks and allowed four homeruns.
Another work horse for the Nighthawk pitching staff is Ben Johnson. Johnson leads the team in innings pitched with 34. The red shirt freshman is off to good start on his career with 23 strikeouts and has walked just six of the 137 batters that he has faced. Both pitchers are the only ones to have thrown complete games on the season.
LAST TIME OUT
The Wildcats are coming off a tough weekend series in Portland, Oregon. Central dropped three games to Concordia University. The Wildcats' only win on the weekend came in game one of the series.
The Wildcat offense was quiet until the fifth inning. Up to that point it had been a pitcher's duel.
Tyler Hoefer got the start for game one of the series and pitched an absolute gem. The junior went 6.1 innings and struck out five of the 26 batters that he faced. Hoefer allowed just four hits and walked three.
Central's bats woke up in the top of the fifth inning. The action started with a leadoff single from
Robert Ball,
Colton Bunt laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Ball to second. After a walk from
Trevor Tripoli,
Justin Hampson smoked a ball to right center field, scoring Ball from second, and moving Tripoli to second. After the two runners moved up, Tripoli later scored on a wild pitch.
The game went quiet yet again until the ninth inning. Ball started the action up once again with a single up the middle on an 0-2 pitch. After Bunt drew a walk, Tripoli singled through the left side scoring Ball from second base. The Wildcats were only able to get the one in the inning. In the bottom half of the inning, the Cavaliers answered back with three runs of their own.
As we entered extra innings, both teams weren't able to get any runs across after some great bullpen work from
JJ Asinas and
Rhyse Frey. In the top of the twelfth inning, Central regained the lead. After a
Mitch Lesmeister single through the left side and an intentional walk to Yi-An Pan, Yi-Fan singled to left field and a throwing error from the left fielder allowed Lesmeister to score.
The scoring continued in the inning after an intentional walk to
Michael Peter loaded the bases, pinch hitter
Jason Hill reached after the defense was unable to get Yi-An out at the plate. Following the top half of the inning, Asinas came back out for his second inning of work. He was able to get a pair of flyouts and a strikeout to take game one by score of 5-3.
Central looks to bounce back in a big way to jump back up to the top of the GNAC rankings.
