KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The Western Michigan baseball team is set for a three-game series at Evansville in the final weekend action before Mid-American Conference (MAC) play begins. The Broncos and Purple Aces will square off on Friday, March 17 at 6 p.m., Saturday, March 18 at 2 p.m., and Sunday, March 19 at 1 p.m. at Braun Stadium.
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The Broncos will enter the weekend at 7-6 overall and have won six of the last seven games, including a 5-1 spring break trip in Florida where WMU knocked off two 2016 NCAA Tournament teams (UConn & Stetson). The Purple Aces are 6-9 overall, 3-2 at home and are coming off a series against Campbell where they took two of three games.
WMU's offense has been extremely hot as of late, recording 15 or more hits in three straight games. The Broncos are ranked No. 16 in the nation in batting average (.326), 29th in on-base percentage (.407) and 39th in slugging percentage (.458). Tanner Allison is leading the way, where he leads the team and ranks No. 9 in the nation in slugging percentage (.855), 17th in RBI (22) and 32nd in batting average (.436). Connor Smith is coming off a monster week for the Broncos, where he was named the National College Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) National Hitter of the Week and MAC West Player of the Week. Last week, Smith hit an incredible .714 (10-for-14) batting average and 1.429 slugging percentage. During the week, Smith also led the team in runs (6), triples (2), RBI (10), on-base percentage (.750) and stolen bases (2-for-2) while tying for the team-lead in home runs (1) and assists (8) placing second in doubles (3).
WMU has four other everyday players batting over .300 in Grant Miller (.353), Nick Vogelmeier (.333), Alex Goodwin (.325) and Jesse Forestell (.314). Andrew Stone has appeared in 11 games with 11 at-bats in is batting .636.
On the mound, sophomore Jack Szott is coming off back-to-back quality starts for WMU, where he has thrown 14.0 innings and allowed two runs on 11 hits with seven strikeouts over the last two games. While Szott leads the team in innings (21.0), Kyle Mallwitz holds a 2.21 ERA over 20.1 innings this season and leads the team in strikeouts (20) and Brandon Petersen is at a 2.19 ERA with 12.1 innings pitched.
Following the series with Evansville, the Broncos will head to B1G Michigan on Wednesday, March 22 and then go to face MAC East foe Miami for a three-game series starting on Friday, March 24 at 6 p.m.
