BY SPENCER HANSEN
Staff Reporter
Central Washington University’s baseball team heads east this coming week looking to keep pace in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference standings.
Central will meet non-conference Division III opponent Whitworth University Pirates in Spokane. The Wildcats took the last meeting between the teams in Ellensburg earlier this season. Over the weekend they’ll face-off with conference foe Montana State-Billings for four games.
The Wildcats come off a clean sweep of Holy Names University where they outscored the Hawks 40-12 over four games. Central has won six games in a row and 13 of their last 16 to find themselves in sole possession of second place in the GNAC, trailing Western Oregon by only two games in the loss column.
“We just want to take it one game at a time,” senior Ethan Sterkel said. “Obviously in baseball you can lose one game pretty easily. It’s just a bounce away.”
Billings is 11-25 overall and 8-14 in GNAC play and sits in the cellar of the conference standings. Montana State has lost six of their last ten with two series remaining before the GNAC conference tournament. The Yellow Jackets are led offensively by Brody Miller who is hitting .416, best in the conference, along with five homers and 29 RBIs.
The Wildcats come into the upcoming series at 25-14 overall and 14-10 in conference play. Central is 8-8 in away games this season, but has taken three of the last four road contests.
It seems, as of late, that every Wildcat hitter is swinging a hot bat. The Wildcats are hitting .288 as a team and Ethan Sterkel leads all hitters with a .390 average. Sterkel has raised his average 60 points over the past month.
“We don’t care who we play, we just want to get better,” Head Coach Desi Storey said. Storey also gave high praise for Sterkel, commenting he’s been on a roll.
Top to bottom, this Wildcats lineup has been tearing the cover off the ball with five players hitting above .300. Junior infielder Kasey Bielec has also been a key contributor in the heart of the order; consistently having great at bats on his way to six home runs and 35 RBIs this year.
Both of these teams can swing the bat really well and pitching could loom large in this series, especially later in the series. The Wildcat’s have been beneficiaries of great starting pitching lately and as a result the bullpen has stayed healthy and rested. The series could come down to whose bullpen is better and how much work they get. Short-handed starting pitching for either team could result in a small bullpen on the day-two double-header.
Montana State’s team ERA is 4.81, but reliever Jake Mills has been a pleasant surprise with a 1.95 ERA and only surrendering seven earned runs in 32 innings pitched. Billings has given up a league- leading 16 homeruns this season.
The Wildcats pitching staff has been a large part of the reason they turned their season around at an early point. They have relied on stellar starting pitching and a bullpen that has shut the door in late-inning situations all year.
Central is led by junior closer Cory Welch who sports a 0.68 ERA. He’s been nearly unhittable late in games and leads the conference with 10 saves. Welch has seemed to shine when the spotlight is the brightest. Senior reliever Max Dickinson has also been a steady hand out of the bullpen to set-up for Welch late in ball games.
The Cats starting rotation has also been stellar. They have gone late into games and really helped to save bullpen arms and keep them fresh for the stretch-run. Junior Brandon Williams leads all Central starters with seven wins and a 2.19 ERA. Senior Kurtis Pitcher has been a pleasant surprise in his first year with the team sporting a 3.69 ERA and striking out 11 in his last outing versus Holy Names.
“I think just in general our whole team was working together,” Pitcher said. “We’re just hungry, we’re hungry for it.”
The Wildcats will play two double-headers in Billings against the Yellow Jackets and the following weekend will hit the road again to play Saint Martin’s in their conference finale before the GNAC tournament.
