United Athletic Conference

 

Sam Houston continued to hold down the top spot in the WAC standings with a 12-3 (.800) record in conference matchups, earning a series victory at home last weekend against third place Abilene Christian (8-4, .667). Stephen F. Austin climbed into solo second at 10-5 (.667), with Grand Canyon and California Baptist both tied at 9-6 (.600).

 

Entering the next week of WAC play, both Stephen F. Austin and UTRGV carry multi-week winning streaks in league games into their respective series. SFA has captured four straight WAC games, and 10 of their last 11 against conference foes, to vault into second place in the standings. UTRGV has found a hot streak of its own with five consecutive conference wins to sit at an even 6-6 in WAC games as of April 13.

 

Reigning WAC Hitter of the Week Brandon Pimentel from UTRGV kept his recent momentum rolling, and after an 11-RBI week to earn the award went 3-for-5 with two RBI and a pair of runs in an 11-2 midweek win over Corpus Christi on April 11. Pimentel is in the top 10 of all WAC hitters in average, on-base percentage, slugging, home runs and RBI this season as of April 13.

 

California Baptist pitcher Liam Rocha improved to 4-0 on the season with a gem of a start at NM State on April 7, going eight shutout innings with two hits and one walk allowed to pick up the win in an 8-5 CBU victory. Rocha also struck out seven Aggies on his way to earning conference pitcher of the week.

 

In the NCAA DI baseball statistics rankings that were released on April 11, Abilene Christian checked in fifth in the nation with a .985 team fielding percentage. Individually, Grand Canyon’s Homer Bush Jr. was fourth in runs (45) and Sam Houston’s Tyler Davis was fourth in batting average (.472). Davis also checked in fifth in base hits (58), while Grand Canyon’s Jacob Wilson was fifth in batting average (.465) and was the fifth-toughest hitter to strike out (20.2) in the country.