Hitter of the week
Langston Ginder- Huntington- 12 hits in 23 at-bats, 3 doubles, 5 homers, 11 runs scored, 19 runs batted in over 5 games.
Pitcher of the week
Eric Winchester- Simpson (CA)- 2-0 on the week, 14 innings pitched, 23 total strikeouts, 5 walks, 3 earned runs.
Touching Base- Week 11
Tennessee Wesleyan put some distance between them and the rest of the AAC this weekend. The Bulldogs of TWU have opened up a 6 game lead in the conference with just 6 games remaining in conference play. TWU put across 10- plus runs in each of the three Big Series of the Week games this past weekend versus Reinhardt. Winning games 1 & 3 by scores of 11-5 & 12-1, game 2 was a high scoring thriller where both teams went back and forth throughout the game. Ultimately a 6 run TWU inning in the bottom of the 8th made the difference in a 15-12 win. Dan Sayre, Cody McGill, and Evan McGill all would homer in that 8th inning. The offense was on full display this weekend, Tennessee Wesleyan has won 10 straight and is finding a solid groove in that right part of the season to get hot. Pending a strong finish with a 6 game lead, this will be the 11th straight regular season title, and the 21st straight taking home either a regular season or tournament title for Tennessee Wesleyan.
William Carey earns a Top 10 sweep of Mobile in a series that didn’t finish till Monday night. The Southern States Athletic Conference is normally a top 5 conference nationally, this year they feel to be in the top 2. The conference features 7 of its 9 members with winning records, and a very alive race for a regular season title. William Carey seems to be clicking at the right time, they have 6 conference matchups left this season. In the SSAC there is only a 5 game difference between being in 1st place and being in 6th place. It feels like annually one of the teams in this conference gets hot then makes a bit of noise in the Opening Round. Should be a fun conference to watch down the stretch nationally!
A new Top 25 poll will be released tomorrow on 4/19, and as usual there will likely be some movement going on within the poll. What I can say for certain is that the Top 4 should hardly see any movement at all. All 4 of those teams have separated themselves nationally (SEU, LSUS, GGC, and TWU). I really would expect #1-6 to remain the same in the poll overall with some shuffling of the Top 10. Que salgan los Coyotes (A reference you might not get unless you’re from deep South Texas), but I expect Kansas Wesleyan who is 9-1 in their last 10 with 3 currently ranked wins in that span to enter the poll. This will be the last regular season Top 25 poll, before the final rankings release on May 10th.