This Week in Peacock Baseball... Upper Iowa is prepping for a tough week of Northern Sun Conference games with a double header against the second-place Bulldogs of the University of Minnesota Duluth in Fayette on Tuesday and a four-game series on the road at first-place Augustana University on Saturday and Sunday. The twinbill with UMD was originally scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but rain in the forecast pushed the double header up a day. UIU is coming off a week in which they split a double header with Minnesota State University, Mankato and a four-game series with Southwest Minnesota State University. The Peacocks are in ninth place in the NSIC standings. UMD enters the week having won 12 straight games, while Augie has posted victories in their last 8 games.
16 Straight... Senior right hander
Zach Carstens threw a second-straight, complete game shutout on Saturday to push his scoreless innings streak to 16 innings after scattering 5 hits over his 9 innings of work against SMSU. Carstens has lowered his ERA by three runs over the last two starts and now carries a 4.71 earned run average. The senior righty rung up 12 Mustang batters with strikeouts after coming into the game with 21 k's in his first seven appearances of the season.
Pitching Staff Finding the Groove... The Peacock pitching staff, aside from game two against Minnesota State last week, posted an earned run average of 1.41 after allowing 6 earned runs in 38.1 innings. Carstens and
Garrison Becker both picked up complete game shutouts, while
Collin Thomas threw 9.1 innings in an extra inning loss to Southwest Minnesota State and allowed just two runs, while
Tyus Adkins allowed three in a victory for UIU.
Ethan Eckelberg threw two scoreless innings of relief of
Tanner Poor, who gave up two runs, one earned, in four innings.
Bulldog Bats on Fire... Senior first baseman Alex Wojciechowski led the Bulldog offense with a .696 batting average, 1.783 slugging, and .741 on-base percentage last week launching 8 home runs, at least one in every game, added 15 RBIs and scored 15 runs. For the season Wojo has 28 homers and 75 rbi. Second baseman Jimmy Heck is hitting .470 this year with 62 hits including 13 home runs and 54 rbi.
Viking Leaders... Patrick O'Donnell is leading the Vikings with a .449 average this year with 66 hits including 15 doubles and 5 home runs. Tyler Field is hitting .405 with 32 hits including 5 homers.
