[Baseball] Baseball is No. 6 seed, faces Oklahoma Wesleyan in First Round of KCAC Tournament
(BRACKET | VIDEO | STATS): The Kansas Wesleyan baseball team is the No. 6 seed in the KCAC Baseball Tournament and will face top-seeded and No. 12 ranked Oklahoma Wesleyan on Thursday in the first round of the conference tournament at the Great Bend Sports Complex in Great Bend.
The tournament was originally slated to begin on Wednesday, but with rain in the forecast conference officials have pushed the start of the tournament back one day.
All KCAC Tournament games will be streamed on the KCAC Digital Network at portal.stretchinternet.com/kcac and will also be available on the Coyote Sports Network at portal.stretchinternet.com/kwu. Live Stats will be available on DakStats at www.dakstats.com/naia.
During the regular season, Kansas Wesleyan won the series over Oklahoma Wesleyan 2-1. KWU won the first two games 7-6 and 2-0, while OKWU won the final game of the series 20-3.
KWU is 24-22 overall and finished conference play 16-17 on the season. Timothy Storms (JR/Caldwell, Idaho) leads the Coyotes with a .344 batting average while Craig Bettis (SR/Merced, Calif.) is batting .339 on the season. Bailey Watros (SR/Sandwich, Ill.) is Wesleyan's hits leader with 48 while hitting .336.
Jake Olofson (JR/Livermore, Calif.) brings a 4.04 ERA to the mound to lead the pitching staff with a 6-2 record in 69 innings pitched on the season. Jakob Sandoval (SR/El Paso, Texas) has tossed a school record 92 and a third innings this season with a 4-5 record and a 4.78 ERA. Wyatt Formo (SR/Mammoth, Ariz.) has the best WHIP among starting pitchers for the Coyotes at 1.66.
Oklahoma Wesleyan is 39-9 on the season heading into the KCAC Tournament. Austin Sojka leads the Eagles with a .477 batting averaging and has a team best 82 hits. Drenis Ozuna has a team best 17 homers.
Michael Anderson has a 10-1 record and a 3.39 ERA for the Eagles in 82 and a third innings. Ryan Sandifer is OKWU's innings leader, tossing 93 so far this season. Tyson Cronin, who also plays left field for the Eagles, leads the team in ERA at 2.61 and has an 8-0 record.
The winner of Thursday's game will play Friday at 3 p.m. against the loser between York and McPherson. The loser will play Friday at 11 a.m. in an elimination game against the loser between Tabor and Sterling.
2019 KCAC TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
Game 1 – (6) Kansas Wesleyan vs (1) Oklahoma Wesleyan – 11 a.m., Thursday
Game 2 – (5) Sterling vs (2) Tabor – 3 p.m., Thursday
Game 3 – (4) McPherson vs (3) York – 7 p.m., Thursday
Game 4 – Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2 – 11 a.m., Friday
Game 5 – Winner Game 1 vs Loser Game 3 – 3 p.m., Friday
Game 6 – Winner Game 2 vs Winner Game 3 – 7 p.m., Friday
Game 7 – Winner Game 5 vs Winner Game 6 – 11 a.m., Saturday
Game 8 – Winner Game 4 vs Loser game 6 – 3 p.m., Saturday
Game 9 – Winner Game 8 vs Loser Game 7 – 7 p.m., Saturday
Game 10 – Winner Game 7 vs Winner Game 9 – 1 p.m., Sunday
Game 11 (If necessary) Winner Game 10 vs Loser Game 10 – 4 p.m., Sunday