Baseball Preview: Ohio Northern (15-14 Overall, 5-7 OAC) at Wittenberg (13-11-1 Overall, 9-7 MIAA)
Thursday, April 21, 2016 - 4 pm, Woodworth Field, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Thursday's Preview: Northern enters today's contest after defeating Wittenberg 10-0 at Carleton Davidson Stadium in Springfield Wednesday evening ... Senior Andy Lubonovic led the Polar Bears at the plate as he went 4-for-6 and scored three runs ... Senior Nick Eltzroth recorded his third career home run in the first inning to give Northern a 2-0 lead ... Junior Zach Maier earned the victory on the mound for Northern and improved to 1-2 on the season as he fanned two batters and only allowed three hits ... Sophomore T.J. Storer earned his team-best and Ohio Athletic Conference-best seventh save of the season and is currently tied for first place all-time at Ohio Northern with 12 career saves ... Storer also moves into third place all-time with seven saves in a single season ... He only needs two more saves to tie the single season record of 12 saves ... Lubonovic stole two bases during the contest with Wittenberg and improved his OAC-best margin to 17 ... Through 29 games this season Lubonovic ranks first on the team with a .360 batting average, while Eltzroth ranks second with a .315 BA ... Lubonovic and Eltzroth also rank 1-2 on the team with 36 and 34 hits, respectively ... Sophomore Jordan Bostater currently leads the team with 22 RBI ... Through 26 innings of work on the mound this season, Storer leads the team with a 0.35 ERA ... Eltzroth and senior Ben Glischinski have struck out a team-high 42 batters each ... Kalamazoo enters this afternoons matchup after dropping a double header with Trine (Ind.) 4-1, 7-0 ... The Hornets are led by junior Mitchell VanKoevering with a .362 batting average ... The junior also leads the team with 34 hits on the season ... Junior David Kracht ranks second on the team in BA (.344) and hits (31) ... Sophomore Ryan Orr leads KC on the mound with a team low 2.28 ERA and has a team-best 5-1 record ... The sophomore has also fanned a team-high 35 batters.
Batting Leaders
| Batting Ave. |
Hits | Runs | RBIs | |||||||||||
| 1. | Lubonovic | .360 | 1. | Lubonovic |
36 | 1. | Lubonovic |
27 | 1. | Bostater | 22 | |||
| 2. | Eltzroth | .315 | 2. | Eltzroth |
34 | 2. | Kasberg | 21 | 2. |
Eltzroth | 18 | |||
| 3. | Meyer | .314 |
3. | Kasberg | 26 | 3. | Eltzroth | 17 | 3. | Lubonovic |
12 |
Pitching Leaders
| Wins |
ERA | Strikeouts |
||||||||
| 1. | Eltzroth | 4 | 1. | Storer | 0.35 | 1. | Eltzroth | 42 | ||
| 2. | B.Glischinski | 3 | 2. | Carr | 2.30 | 2. | B.Glischinski | 42 | ||
| Crabtree | 3 | 3. | Crabtree | 2.52 | 3. | Storer | 31 |
Series Notes: Northern leads the all-time series between the two schools by a 2-0 margin ... The teams met for the first two times in 2015 and Northern swept the double header at Kalamazoo (Mich.) 11-2, 2-0.
ONU head coach Gene Stechschulte: Stechschulte in his fifth season at ONU with an overall record of 105-79, a winning percentage of .571.