FULTON, Mo.- After defeating the No. 2 seed Lyon College on the opening day of the American Midwest Conference Tournament, the No. 3 seed William Woods baseball team will now face off with No. 1 Missouri Baptist.
Missouri Baptist advanced to the second round of the AMC Tournament, defeating Benedictine-Springfield easily 11-1, totaling 13 hits and was led by the complete game pitching performance of Ethan Gibbons who allowed one run on five hits while striking out 12.
The Owls and Spartans met at Missouri Baptist during the regular season and MBU swept the Owls in the four game series, out-scoring WWU 19-8. That was the longest losing streak on the season for the Owls, however, since then the team has lost just three times in 22 games played.
Players To Look Out For (William Woods)
Zach Nichols went 4-for-4 with one run scored and one RBI against Lyon, moving up his season average to 0.397. Greg Hamrock (1-for-5) and
Stephen Kohler (2-for-4), both contributed a combined three runs scored and three RBI at the 1-2 spots in the order. The duo still holds the top spots in season average as well, with Hamrock batting 0.426 and Kohler hitting 0.421.
Ryan Sweet holds a 0.400 average for the average, while
Justin Elmore (0.375),
Jacob Harrison (0.350), and
Matt Thomas (0.324) will all be looked upon to lead the offense against Missouri Baptist.
Jeremy Ahillen picked up his fifth victory on the season against Lyon, lowering his ERA to 3.02 in 44 2/3 innings pitched. The Owls will likely start
Dane Smith against MBU, as Smith holds a 3.33 ERA to go along with his 3-3 record in 54 innings pitched. Smith has a solid K/BB ratio of 34/14 and is holding his opponents' batting average to 0.270.
Players To Look Out For (Missouri Baptist)
The Spartan offense is led by shortstop Patrick Johnson, batting 0.373 (57-for-153), adding 13 doubles and 18 RBI. Ryan Gunhouse (0.368) and Pier Olivier-Dostalier (0.336) will be names to keep an eye out for in the MBU offense, as Gunhouse leads the team in RBI with 33, while Olivier-Dostalier leads the team in runs scored (37), hits (50) and doubles (15). Olivier-Dostalier was huge in the victory for MBU over Benedictine-Springfield, going 4-for-6 with four runs scored and three RBI.
Missouri Baptist will start Julien Soucy against William Woods, as he holds a 1.73 ERA through 52 innings pitched, earning a 4-2 record. The Spartan staff has been solid all season, having a 2.80 ERA and a K/BB ratio of 225/93.
Soucy and Smith met in game two during the regular season, with Soucy going six innings allowing one run on six hits while striking out four. Smith, meanwhile, went five one/third innings, allowing five runs on 10 hit and struck out two Spartan batters.
This will be a tremendous matchup between the two top teams in the American Midwest Conference, as William Woods will look to hand MBU a loss after getting swept during the regular season, while MBU will look to slow down the Owls offense that has been swinging the bats very well this season and arguably has been one of the top offenses in the country.
The winner goes on to the championship game on Monday afternoon, while the losing team will play at 12:00 p.m. on Monday. First-pitch for tomorrow's game will be at 3:00 p.m. Stay updated on wwuowls.com tomorrow evening for the game recap.
