Baseball heads into IIAC Tournament

The BVU baseball team wrapped up the regular season last weekend with a sweep of Cornell College. The Beavers put up a whopping 17 runs on Friday night in defeating the Rams 17-3. The win gave BVU the outright regular season IIAC title. Head Coach Steve Eddie is very pleased with the season and how his team has done so far.

“Well, it’s amazing,” Eddie said. “I’ve dreamt about it for a lot of years now, and I’m just excited for our players who kind of broke through and won the first championship in a long time, and it’s something they can always be proud of.”

Junior Kevin Kloewer went 5-for-5 in the contest and tallied two home runs, six RBI, and three runs scored. Junior Luke Probasco got the win on the mound and improved to 8-1 on the year.

On Saturday, the Beavers won game one of the double header 6-1. Sophomore pitcher Ryan Wuebker got his ninth win of the year and is just one win away from the all-time record set in 1976. Wuebker allowed just four hits, while striking out seven.

Junior Brad Blum had two hits and scored a run to lead the offense. In game two, the bats were even stronger for the Beavers in a 15-6 win.

Sophomore Michael Dirkx got the win on the mound, going four innings while only allowing one run and striking out four. First-year Griffin Hattan, junior Nick Lanning, and junior Kyle Dupic all pitched in relief. Several Beavers had a strong game at the plate.
Blum and senior Brandon Pietryzk each had three hits. Kloewer hit his 12th home run of the year. Seniors Mike Stephenson and Brett Wilson and first-years Ryan Scheetz and Neil Eddie each had two hits on the day. Stephenson says the Beavers are going to stick with what works in the tournament.

“We are excited and ready to play,” Stephenson said. “We plan on sticking with our game plan that has worked for us the whole year. If we play our style of baseball we are a major threat and fun team to watch.”

Pietrzyk says the Beavers will continue to just keep working and make their next goal of winning the conference tournament.

“I feel really good about it,” Pietrzyk said. “This was exactly where we wanted to be from day one when the tournament came around. The first round bye is a huge advantage. Now we just have to keep playing our game and we will be able to obtain our next goal.”

Senior designated hitter Brett Wilson says the team is going into the tournament wanting to accomplish even more.

“I think the best way to describe our team attitude is confident but hungry,” Wilson said. “We’re confident because we’ve already accomplished some of the goals we had set for this seaseon, but we’re still hungry for more. We’ve got more goals to accomplish.”

Eddie says the Beavers’ solid play both on offense and defense has helped them solidify their spot at the top.

“We’ve played great defense. We’ve hit the ball extremely consistently throughout the year and our pitching has been outstanding, so it’s pretty impressive. We led the league in conference games in batting average, ERA, and fielding percentage, so it’s just been a solid year all the way around.

Eddie adds that all six teams in the league tournament are solid this year.

“All six teams that are in the league tournament have 20 wins under their belt, so it’s going to be a dog fight,” Eddie said. “I mean, all the teams are so similar. I’d like to think we are a little bit deeper than most, but it doesn’t really matter at this point. A couple guys get hot for the right team and they’re going to have a good weekend.”