ELLENSBURG, WASH. – The Central Washington University baseball team (14-21-1, 11-20) host Montana State University Billings (22-18, 22-10) for the final home series of the season and the final home games for four Wildcat athletes.
GAME INFORMATION
Friday April, 26
DH starting at 12:00 p.m.
Ellensburg, Wa| CWU Baseball Field
LIVE STATS |
LIVE VIDEO
Saturday April, 27
DH starting at 11:00 a.m.
Ellensburg, Wa | CWU Baseball Field
LIVE STATS |
LIVE VIDEO
SCOUTING MONTANA STATE
The Yellow Jackets are coming off of a three-game weekend against Northwest Nazarene University. MSUB racked up 37 runs on 48 hits and seven of which were homeruns on the weekend. The Yellow Jacket offense is explosive and has the power to make a three-run game into a one run game with one swing of the bat. Montana State leads the league in homeruns as a team and has three hitters in double digits.
Daniel Cipriano is a special type of power hitter. Not only is he leading the team in homeruns with 13, but he's also leading the team in batting average with a .380 mark. The junior has tallied 46 hits in 121 at-bats and has brought in a team-high 37 RBIs. Matt Dillion is also on the power train with his 12 round trippers on the year and 28 RBIs already.
The pitching staff is led by Steen Fredrickson who has the lowest ERA of all the MSUB starters with a mark of 3.96 and leads the team in strikeouts with 63. In his last start against the Wildcats, Fredrickson went seven innings giving up five runs on three hits and struck out 9 hitters. The senior is 4-1 on the year in the ten starts that he has made.
Of the four pitchers that have started ten games, three have struck out 55 batters or more. Strikeouts have been one of the biggest problems that the CWU offense has faced and is something to keep an eye on going into this weekend's series.
LAST TIME OUT
Four Wildcats (
Connor Stevenson,
Robert Ball,
James Brooks, and
Jacob Forrester) will be suiting up in the Wildcat home uniforms for the last time in their career.
Connor Stevenson is a transfer who came from Mount Hood Community College where he spent two years as a starting pitcher and appeared in 24 games and started 17 of them. Stevenson threw 111.1 innings and had a 3.07 ERA with 79 strikeouts and 35 walks. Stevenson emerged last season as one of the best pitchers on the staff. As a junior, Stevenson started 12 games and went 5-6 with a 4.40 ERA with 53 strikeouts through a team high 75.2 innings.
Robert Ball has been at Central for three years and has made 69 starts in his career. Through this starts, Ball has made just 7 errors, thrown out 29 base runners and has 70 assists. The senior has a .985 fielding percentage through his career as a Wildcat. Ball stood out as an everyday backstop last season and solidified himself as someone that younger guys can go to and learn from.
James Brooks is in the middle of his first season as a Wildcat. The senior is a transfer from Concordia University and played at Tacoma Community College before that. In 2017, Brooks threw 48 innings out of the bullpen for the Cavaliers and held a 4.12 ERA which was the lowest of any pitcher that threw more than two innings. He struck out 56 batters which was one shy of the team lead and gave up just 45 hits in 180 at-bats. Brooks was 4-5 after appearing in 18 games (three of which he started) and had five saves on the season.
Jacob Forrester is the only senior that has been here for all four years of his collegiate career and has been a staple of the back end of the bullpen each year. Forrester has battled adversity in his career going through a UCL tear which resulted in a experimental surgery to speed up his recovery time. In 2016, before he had surgery, he threw 18.2 innings in a middle relief role and had a 6.75 ERA with just 15 strikeouts. He then missed the entire 2017 season due to recovery and came back in 2018 stronger than ever. In 2018, Forrester threw 10 innings and had 19 strikeouts and saved two games with a 2.90 ERA. So far this season Forrester has 27 strikeouts through 13.1 innings with a 3.38 ERA.
Come join us in celebrating our four seniors and saying fair well for their final games in a Wildcat uniform.
