ABILENE, TEXAS – The University of the Incarnate Word baseball team will close out its 2015 schedule with a three-game Southland Conference series on the road against Abilene Christian. Games are scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m., Friday at 2 p.m. and Saturday at noon.
The Cardinals (19-29, 10-17 SLC) are coming off a pair of losses to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to end their season-high six-game winning streak. They will send
Geno Encina (3-4, 1.99 ERA),
Garret Cooper (5-6, 4.68 ERA) and
Kris Looper (3-6, 5.69 ERA) to the mound to try to end the season on a high note.
Encina has pitched at least eight innings in three of his last four games and his ERA is down to 1.99, fourth best in the Southland Conference. He sports a strikeout-to-walk ratio better than 4.00 and has issued just 10 walks in nearly 60 innings of work.
Christian Divelbiss (Yuba City/Yuba City HS) leads the team in batting average among qualifying hitters with a .290 average.
Aaron Warren (Schertz/Wagner HS) does not have enough at bats to qualify, but he is riding a nice hitting streak of seven games to raise his batting average to .360.
Matt Morris (Scottsdale, AZ/Saguaro HS) leads the team in runs (24), hits (52), doubles (15) and walks (23), while
Austin Hoffman (Goodyear, AZ/Millenium HS) leads in RBI's with 29.
Colton Besett (Cedar Park/Vista Ridge HS) hit his team-leading fifth home run last weekend. As a team, the Cardinals are hitting .250 and averaging 4.1 runs per game.
Abilene Christian (13-35, 11-16 SLC) is on a four-game losing streak, but are a game ahead of the Cardinals in the standings. They are 5-16 at home where they will host the Cardinals for the last three conference games of the season for both teams. The Wildcats rank last in the conference with a .244 team batting average, while the Cardinals are second-to-last with a .250 average. They are scoring 4.0 runs per game and have eight home runs as a team. Tyler Eager leads the team with a .293 average, 55 hits, 14 doubles, 29 RBI's and nine stolen bases. He has also scored 29 runs.
The projected starters for the three-game series are Thomas Altimont, Nate Cole and Garrett deMeyere. Altimont is 3-7 with a 3.81 ERA on the year. He has three complete games, has struck out 69 and walked 21 in 75.2 innings. Cole has appeared in 20 games, but has only started three games. He is 0-2 with a 3.55 ERA. He has 23 walks and 46 strikeouts in 38 innings. DeMeyere is 3-5 and holds a 5.01 ERA in 12 starts this year. He has struck out 34 batters and walked 25 in 64.2 innings. Kevin Sheets, Ladgie Zotyka and Nick Palacios all have ERA's under 3.00 in at least 19 appearances out of the pen.
All three games will be broadcast online at
www.uiwlive.com.
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