Western baseball rules conference early
Wolves on their way to yet another GNAC title
Chris Reed
Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: Sports
A little over a month remains in the season for Western's baseball team, and so far, things are looking right as rain for the squad.
The Wolves, the only baseball champions the conference has seen in its existence, currently hold a four-game lead in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) standings at 18-7-1 overall and 11-1-1 in the conference.
The tied game was the result of a weather postponement against Saint Martin's on March 14 when the teams were knotted 4-4 in the tenth inning. The game was scheduled to be completed on March 24 with the second game of the original doubleheader to follow, but it has not occurred yet.
Ranked No. 18 in the nation, the Wolves began the season slowly. Western faced off against then-No. 7 Chico State for a four-game series, but only came away with one victory. The following weekend, however, the Wolves won three of four games against then-No. 4 UC San Diego, a huge morale boost for the squad.
Aside from a relatively poor performance in the Central Washington Invitational Tournament, Western has been well in control since the California road trip. Four of the team's losses came at the hands of teams ranked top ten in the country, while the other three were to Central Washington, the GNAC's second-place team. The Wolves are only 3-3 against the Wildcats this season.
The batters for the team tend to hit well against left-handed starters, going 8-1 so far this season against southpaws. They also tend to score many runs in the middle portion of games, scoring over one third of their runs in the fourth and fifth innings this year.
The top players at the plate for the Wolves have been Travis Fox, Thomas McCarthy, Jason Moseby, and Justin Speer.
Fox, a senior, leads off for the Wolves and leads the team in runs (25) and stolen bases (7).
McCarthy, only a freshman, is the Wolves' most efficient batter as he has the top batting average and on-base percentage in the team, hitting .469 and .507, respectively.
The Wolves, the only baseball champions the conference has seen in its existence, currently hold a four-game lead in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) standings at 18-7-1 overall and 11-1-1 in the conference.
The tied game was the result of a weather postponement against Saint Martin's on March 14 when the teams were knotted 4-4 in the tenth inning. The game was scheduled to be completed on March 24 with the second game of the original doubleheader to follow, but it has not occurred yet.
Ranked No. 18 in the nation, the Wolves began the season slowly. Western faced off against then-No. 7 Chico State for a four-game series, but only came away with one victory. The following weekend, however, the Wolves won three of four games against then-No. 4 UC San Diego, a huge morale boost for the squad.
Aside from a relatively poor performance in the Central Washington Invitational Tournament, Western has been well in control since the California road trip. Four of the team's losses came at the hands of teams ranked top ten in the country, while the other three were to Central Washington, the GNAC's second-place team. The Wolves are only 3-3 against the Wildcats this season.
The batters for the team tend to hit well against left-handed starters, going 8-1 so far this season against southpaws. They also tend to score many runs in the middle portion of games, scoring over one third of their runs in the fourth and fifth innings this year.
The top players at the plate for the Wolves have been Travis Fox, Thomas McCarthy, Jason Moseby, and Justin Speer.
Fox, a senior, leads off for the Wolves and leads the team in runs (25) and stolen bases (7).
McCarthy, only a freshman, is the Wolves' most efficient batter as he has the top batting average and on-base percentage in the team, hitting .469 and .507, respectively.
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