Baseball Early April Recap

Wittenberg University's baseball team has won six straight games, its longest streak since March 1998, and padded the streak with four wins last week. The Tigers opened the week with a 11-3 non-conference win at Mt. St. Joseph then swept Earlham in a three-game North Coast Athletic Conference West division series. The series opened with a 24-9 win on Thursday, followed by 20-11 and 6-4 victories in a doubleheader on Saturday.

Junior third basemen Jeff Beulow (Oakland, Mich./Rochester) was named the NCAC Player of the Week for his offensive heroics. For the week, he batted .625 (10-of-16) with two home runs, 11 runs batted in and seven runs scored. In Game 1 of the Earlham series he went 5-for-5 with three doubles, a home run and six RBI, and in Game 2 he went 3-for-4 with a double, home run and RBI as the Tigers scored 14 runs in their last two at-bats to overcome an 11-6 deficit.

Freshman righthander Kurt Hartfelder (Columbus, Ohio/Upper Arlington) was named NCAC Pitcher of the Week after going 2-0 with a 1.64 earned run average for the week. He pitched a nine-inning complete game at Mt. St. Joseph, allowing three runs (two earned) on six hits with three walks and two strikeouts. Then on Saturday, Hartfelder entered in relief in Game 2 of the Earlham series and pitched two innings of scoreless one-hit ball to pick up the win in relief. Tiger pitchers had struggled to that point, yielding three home runs and hitting four Quaker batsmen in giving up 11 runs. Hartfelder entered the game with the score tied at 11 and allowed just one baserunner in the final two innings.

The latest NCAC statistics have been released, and the Tigers' total team effort is evident. Wittenberg doesn't rank higher than third in any team category (batting, fielding or pitching) and only senior rightfielder Ryan Peters (London, Ohio/London) leads the league in an individual category. Peters has 11 home runs, and he also leads the Tigers with a .449 batting average.

Wittenberg, which scored 61 runs in four games last week and has reached double-figures offensively 10 times this season, is in first place in the NCAC West division with a 5-0 record and lead Ohio Wesleyan (5-1) by one-half game and Denison (6-3) by two games. The Tigers and Big Red square off in an important three-game series this weekend, and then the Tigers head to Ohio Wesleyan the next weekend for potentially the biggest series of the regular season.

Finally, Tigers Head Coach Jay Lewis reached a milestone last week with his 100th career win against Ohio Northern on April 8. A 1994 Wittenberg graduate, Lewis is 104-78-3 in five seasons as head coach.