Hitter of the week
Cody Moore- Tabor (KS): 9-13, 6 runs, 2 doubles, 4 home runs, 15 runs batted in vs McPherson (KS) & Ottawa (KS).
Pitcher of the week
Sebastian Rodriguez- Point Park (PA): 2-0, 11 innings pitched, 8 hits allowed, 1 earned run, 1 walk, 17 strikeouts vs Cornerstone & Alice Lloyd.
Other players/pitchers receiving consideration this week include: Devin Warner- GGC, Drenis Ozuna- OKWU, Blane Besse- MoBap, Uly Duran- Westcliff, Kam Haviland- BenUMesa, Daniel Willie- Montreat, Michael Pelosi IV- Central Christian, Isaac Santana- PPU, Nate Raniszewski- Cleary, Brock Glavely- William Woods, Brandon Springer- WJU, Austin Dennis- Thomas More, Sam Goude- Kentucky Christian, Daniel Galvan- Keiser, and Levi Loughridge- Evangel.
Touching Base- Week 6
A few thoughts from some of the happenings of the last week.
Hope International (HIU) takes a massive series from Vanguard (CA) this past weekend in our Big Series of the Week. Ultimately, HIU takes the series 3-1 but as far as the race for the GSAC is concerned, its a 2-1 conference series victory. Hector Garcia was nails in game 1, giving a strong 5 innings pitched 9 strikeout effort for an 8-4 victory. In game 2, Lion pitchers Jacob Dahlstrom and Jackson Webber combined for 7 strong innings. A Rodriguez homer in the 8th doubled the deficit and the Lions tied up the series. In game 3, the Lions struck first but Royals pitcher/ DH Matthew Pinal worked a groove and helped himself with a 3 run homer in the 4th in their 7-3 win. HIU earned themselves a massive series win over Vanguard, and will likely keep them in the top 10. Vanguard committed 10 errors in the series and while they will absolutely be a top 25 team on Wednesday, they will have some things to tidy up.
The first in-season ratings of the year will be released on Wednesday at some point. There will be a few new teams in the coaches’ poll Top 25, but either way, we wanted to highlight some of the best surprise programs to watch just over a month into the year. Not all of these will be included in this ratings period, but these are the teams who have caught my attention, and will be getting a closer look in an upcoming article (records as of 3/6): Grand View 12-1, Mobile 17-2, Blue Mountain Christian 17-3, Missouri Baptist 14-2, Mount Marty 12-3, Doane 11-3, Evangel 15-3, and Concordia- Ann Arbor 9-1. Some of these teams are off to their best start in history, and some have regular post-season success. But all have caught our eye in one way or another, and deserve to be recognized for a great start to the 2023 campaign.
Our Lady of the Lake (TX) stuns #4 LSU-Shreveport in a Red River series. The Pilots of Shreveport took the first game of the series in a 9-0 win, in which Bobby Vath was dominant over 6 innings, and Carlos Pineyro had a 4 hit game. Game 2 came down to the wire and Freshman Diego Zuniga pinch hit 2 rbi single made the difference late in the game for a 2-1 win to even the series. Game 3 would be sent to extras after the Saints picked up 2 in the bottom of the 9th, and then a D’Artagnan Perez- Padron single sealed the series win in a walk off victory in the 10th. It’s a massive series win for OLLU in Red River Athletic Conference play, and for the Pilots it should just be a learning weekend. San Antonio has not been kind to LSUS in recent years, the Pilots are 1-6 in their last two series in the Alamo city. LSUS is also 5-5 in their last 10 games against OLLU, both home, away, and neutral matches.