ON TAPMacalester will be on road, Wednesday, for a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader at Concordia and will play a non-conference doubleheader at home, Sunday, versus Wisconsin-Stout.
Wednesday's twin bill was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was pushed back a day due to weather conditions in the Fargo-Moorhead area. The doubleheader is scheduled to get underway at 2:30 p.m. at Concordia's Jake Christiansen Stadium and Athletic Complex. Live stats for both games will be available at
http://concordiamn.prestosports.com/sports/bsb/2014-15/boxscores/20150408_28p0.xml (game one) and
http://concordiamn.prestosports.com/sports/bsb/2014-15/boxscores/20150408_0yv9.xml (game two).
Macalester was slated for a MIAC doubleheader, Saturday, at home versus St. Olaf but will not be played due to the Oles cancelling their 2015 schedule.
Sunday, the Scots will play two seven-inning games versus the Blue Devils instead of one nine-inning game as originally scheduled. Game one is slated for a 1 p.m. start and video along with live stats will be available at
http://portal.stretchinternet.com/macalester/.
WHEN LAST WE METMacalester and Concordia split a pair of games at Nicholson Field on April 8, 2014. The Scots scored four times in both the third and fourth innings en route to an 11-5 win.
Quentin Stuart drove in three runs with a pair of doubles in the game and also scored three times and Aiden Hennen drove in four runs for Macalester.
In game two, Braden Rahman had two hits, a sacrifice fly and four RBI to lead the Cobbers to a 7-1 win.
Macalester's last meeting with UW-Stout was a late-night doubleheader at the Metrodome, March 27, 2013, in which the Scots claimed a sweep with 7-6 and 4-1 wins.
Macalester had five hits in a five second inning of game one, including a run-scoring single by
Ross Bronfenbrenner and a two-run double by
Nick Sia. The Scots came up with a couple key insurance runs in the sixth without a hit, getting two walks and a sacrifice bunt to start things off, a Sia sacrifice fly for one run, and a passed ball for another.
Starter
Justin Kleschen collected his first win, working five and two-thirds innings and
Chase Kahn struck out three of the four batters he faced to pick up his first save.
Nathan Kelleher-Crew pitched a complete game and scattered five hits to pick up his first win of the 2013 season in game two, giving up just one walk and an unearned run.
Justin Sims went 2-for-2 with a triple, a walk and run scored.
LOOKING BACKMacalester had a tough week last week, dropping all four of its MIAC games to fall to 0-6 in the conference standings.
The Scots hosted eighth-ranked St. Thomas on a windy day, Wednesday and dropped 10-5 and 22-9 decisions with game two carrying over to Thursday when it was halted due to lightning in the middle of the sixth innings.
Rookies
Phil Wettersten and
Alex Baretta both collected their first collegiate home runs in the second game of the doubleheader, which took two hours and 19 minutes to play five and one-half innings but just 20 minutes to play the final inning and a half when the teams returned to Nicholson Field, Thursday.
Tom Forster had four hits, including a double and a triple, in the doubleheader while
Phillip Stuhr, who had two doubles, and
Nick Mar both had three hits.
The Scots' pitching staff took a serious blow when left-handed starting pitchers Justin Babinec and
Sam Thomas both suffered injuries which will keep them out indefinitely.
Saturday, Macalester suffered a pair of one-run losses at league-leading Carleton, dropping a 9-8 decision in game one before falling 7-6 in 12 innings in game two.
The Scots led 8-2, thanks in large part to Forster, who drove in three runs and scored four times, before Carleton scored seven times in the bottom of the six inning, finally taking the lead when Hayden Tsutsui capped the rally with a two-out grand slam home run.
Game two saw the Scots score twice in the top of the second inning to take a 2-0 lead and three times in the top of the third to regain the lead at 5-3 as Forst singled home a pair of runs and scored the other in the inning.
After the Knights scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings, neither team plated a run until the top of the 10th, when
Sam Berk's third double of the day drove in Baretta with the go-ahead run.
The home team answered that when Griffin Bolte homered to lead off the bottom of the 10th and he would account for the winning run in the 12th when he doubled and scored on Jordan Zoellmer's single.
OF NOTE …After going hitless in four consecutive games and seeing his batting average dip to .250 on the season, Forster went 8-for-16 last week a double, triple, home run and eight RBI as his average climbed back to .317. A .328 career hitter, Forster collected his 100th career hit when he extended his hitting streak to seven games to start the season in the second game of a doubleheader versus Illinois Tech, March 19.
In 55 games and 126 at bats during his first two seasons at Macalester, Berk collected 33 hits and three doubles. In 15 games and 54 at bats this season, he has almost matched that his total, with 25, and has far surpassed his doubles total with 11, collecting three in the doubleheader at Carleton.
Brendan O'Connor has been stellar in relief for the Scots this season. After opening the season with 11 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings, he has a 2.25 earned run average in 20 innings on the season. Saturday, he worked six and one-third innings in relief, allowing just one run.
NATIONAL RANKINGSA total of 375 teams play NCAA Division III baseball and, through games of April, the Scots are ranked highly in several categories.
INDIVIDUALS| Category | Player | Rank | Actual | National Leader | Actual |
| Doubles Per Game | Sam Berk | 20 | 0.62 | Eddie Gates, Norwich | 1.00 |
| Triples Per Game | Tom Forster | 27 | 0.23 | Jack Roberts, Williams | 0.50 |
| Triples | Tom Forster | 25 | 3 | Nathan Thyssen, Concordia-Wis. | 7 |
TEAM| Category | Rank | Actual | National Leader | Actual |
| Batting Average | 23 | 0.34 | Salisbury | 0.37 |
| Scoring | 14 | 9.3 | Salisbury | 10.2 |
| Doubles Per Game | 24 | 2.43 | Bates | 3.30 |
| Doubles | 101 | 34 | Ferrum | 70 |
| Triples Per Game | 10 | 0.71 | Coast Guard | 1.10 |
| Purchase | 1.10 |
| Triples | 23 | 10 | Cal Lutheran | 19 |
| Home Runs Per Game | 4 | 1.00 | Wartburg | 1.44 |
| Home Runs | 11 | 14 | Pomona-Pitzer | 26 |
| Wartburg | 26 |
| Slugging Percentage | 4 | .537 | Purchase | .557 |
| On Base Percentage | 28 | .422 | Salisbury | .462 |
PROBABLE LINEUP HE'S THE BOSSThe longest-tenured head coach at Macalester,
Matt Parrington is in his 16th season as the school's head baseball coach. His career record of 247-330-2 makes him the winningest coach in school history.
Parrington was the 2011 MIAC coach of the year after leading Macalester to the regular-season crown its first MIAC championship in 61 years. He has led the Scots to playoff appearances in 2000 and 2011.
Parrington is a 1991 graduate of Minnesota State University – Mankato, where he earned an undergraduate degree in mass communication and a master's degree in sports administration in 1993. He enjoyed a career as both an outfielder and pitcher and was a member of three North Central Conference championship teams while playing under American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame head coach Dean Bowyer. Following his playing career, he served as a graduate assistant coach with duties as the team's pitching coach.
Parrington came to Macalester from the Milwaukee Brewers front office in the fall of 1996, where he served as a sales manager in the season ticket and group sales office. During his first three years on staff at Macalester he was the associate head coach under his predecessor, Steve Hauser, and served as recruiting coordinator.
During the summer of 2012, Parrington was inducted into the Class A Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame for his on field play with the Minnetonka Millers.
UP NEXTThree doubleheaders are on Macalester's slate for next week. That schedule begins Wednesday when the Scots are at CHS Field to face Hamline in a MIAC doubleheader, beginning at 2:30 p.m. They will then play a pair of twin bills next weekend at Nicholson Field, opening with Saturday's conference doubleheader versus Saint Mary's, which is scheduled to get underway at 1 p.m. Sunday sees Macalester hosting Minnesota-Morris in a non-conference doubleheader. The Scots and Cougars are slated to play a pair of seven-inning games beginning at 2 p.m.
SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLEYou can follow Macalester Athletics on a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. To find information and links to the sites, go to http://athletics.macalester.edu and click on the "Multimedia" tab at the top of the page.
