KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The Western Michigan baseball team will look for its second straight midweek win over a B1G team, as the Broncos head to Northwestern on Tuesday, April 11 with game time scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
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The Broncos enter at 13-14 overall and are 1-1 on the road against B1G teams, including a 3-2 win over Michigan State on Tuesday, March 28. The Wildcats will enter at 10-20 overall and 2-4 in the B1G. They are coming off a series where they took two of three games at home against Iowa.
As a team, the Broncos are hitting .302, which is currently good for second in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and 29th in the nation. In division one, WMU is also ranked 20th in sacrifice bunts, 48th in on-base percentage and has a stellar defense, who is ranked 22nd in the nation with a .980 fielding percentage. Junior Tanner Allison continues to lead the team in many categories after another big weekend where he hit .545 against Ball State. Allison is third in the nation in RBI per game (1.48) and 12th in total RBI (40). He's also 31st in slugging percentage (.684) and 32nd in batting average (.395). Along with Allison, two every day starters are hitting over .300 in Connor Smith (.333) and Grant Miller (.320). Smith is fourth in the nation in triples (five) while Miller is second on the team with 17 walks, behind leadoff man Nick Vogelmeier (18).
The WMU pitching staff holds a 5.86 ERA as six different players have thrown at least 15.0 innings. Kyle Mallwitz leads the team in innings pitched (49.0) wins (four) and strikeouts (40) while Gabe Berman has thrown 28.2 innings with a 3.77 ERA and leads the team with three saves, adding onto his WMU career-leading number. Jacob Piechota is 2-2 with a 5.06 ERA in 37.1 innings while Jimmy Townsend-Chase is 1-1 with a 4.70 ERA in 23.0 innings.
Following the midweek game with the Wildcats, WMU will head north to face rival Central Michigan (6-0 MAC) in a three-game series. The teams will square off on Friday, April 14 at 3 p.m., Saturday, April 15 at 2 p.m. and Sunday, April 16 at 1 p.m.
