ELLENSBURG, Wash. – Central Washington looks to celebrate eight seniors as they welcome Western Oregon for a four-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference series this Friday and Saturday to close out the 2022 home schedule.
Both Friday and Saturday will include doubleheaders scheduled to start at 12:00 p.m. Senior day celebrations will take place prior to Saturday's games.
"Pitching has gotten better so we're looking to go out there and compete," Central Washington Head Coach
Desi Storey said. "To send out the seniors with some quality wins at home would be awesome. We're looking to get back on track and play competitive baseball and the rest is out of our hands from there."
CELEBRATING THE SENIORS
The Wildcats will honor
Tyler McClain,
Michael Copeland,
Michael Peter,
Jake Bradley,
Jacob Goudzwaard,
Riley Wingerson,
Josh Touhey, and
Dylan Weese for their hard work and commitment to CWU baseball.
WOLVES IN THE HUNT
Western Oregon currently sits 21-14 overall and 12-8 in GNAC play. Sitting just three games out of first, the Wolves are looking to make up ground in hunt for the GNAC regular season title.
Last weekend the Wolves split with Montana State Billings. After dropping both games on Friday, the Wolves rallied to take games three and four to tie the series on Saturday.
The Maiben brothers, Jacob & Derek, lead the Wolves offensively as the only players with 40+ hits. Jacob Maiben leads the duo with a .353 average and four doubles, whereas Derek Maiben leads the team with 42 hits and the GNAC with 17 stolen bases.
Arturo Alvarez leads the Wolves on the mound with a spotless 4-0 record through eight starts. Owning a 2.59 earned run average (ERA), Alvarez has allowed just 12 earned runs on 35 hits through 41.2 innings pitched.
BOUNCING BACK
Last weekend Central Washington fell by way of the sweep to Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho. While currently leading the GNAC in team batting average (.296) and total hits (364), the Wildcats only captured nine runs on 22 hits over the weekend.
Central owns the three hottest bats of the conference in
Zach Berryman,
Adam Fahsel, and
Austin Ohland. Fahsel, the GNAC leader in runs scored (40), leads CWU with a .359 average on the season. Berryman, the GNAC leader in hits (53), owns a .351 average at the plate with 31 runs batted in (RBI) on the year. Ohland has remained the GNAC slugging leader all season, owning a .600 slugging percentage with 20 doubles and seven home runs.
Freshman
Ryan Arredondo (4-1) has been the Wildcats work horse on the mound. Arredondo owns a 4.75 ERA with 23 strikeouts through 47.1 innings.
Last weekend against Northwest Nazarene, freshman
Nolan Milliman (1-2) had an impressive outing in just his second start of the season. Miliman allowed just one unearned run on two hits, two walks, and four strikeouts through 5.0 innings.
After sweeping WOU in a two game non-conference series earlier this season, the Wildcats split its first series with the Wolves in Monmouth, Ore., 2-2.
