Western Oregon Baseball Hosts Concordia Sunday

Salem-News.com SPORTS

MONMOUTH - The Western Oregon baseball team played half of their scheduled 10-game road trip last week, getting washed out in the Bay area of games against Sonoma State and San Francisco State.

Those games will not be re-scheduled.

Home Opener:

Weather permitting, the Wolves will play at home for the first time this season on Sunday, hosting Concordia in a doubleheader. Start time is noon.

Tritons Trip Wolves:

Western Oregon won the opener of a four-game set with UC San Diego, but the Tritons bounced back to win one-run, two-run and three-run close encounters to take the series, 3-1 Feb. 2nd-4th.

“We did some pretty good things for our first time out, and all of those games could have gone either way,” said WOU head coach Jeremiah Robbins.

“We hit the ball pretty well, with good pop, but also struck out too much. Our pitching needs more experience, so it was too bad to have the trip cut short. UCSD is a good, polished team, that was a good experience for us.”

Cusick Silences Otters:

In WOU’s other game on the trip, true freshman Mike Cusick went eight innings and only gave up one run in shutting down Cal State Monterey Bay.

“Mike threw strikes, he didn’t walk anyone, and you won’t get hurt if you keep the ball on the edge of the plate like he did,” Robbins said. “He didn’t look like a freshman making his debut, he didn’t feel the pressure, he just pitched.”

Players of The Week:

Cusick, from West Salem HS, was named the GNAC Pitcher of the Week for his efforts. For his offense against UCSD, senior shortstop Paul Fisher was named GNAC Offensive Player of the Week.

By The Numbers:

Fisher and Aaron Sutton lead the Wolves through five games with a .375 batting average. Fisher also had nine RBI, while Coubi Jiles has a pair of home runs.

Arms Race:

Cusick is 1-0 with a 1.12 ERA to lead the starters after one week. Kyle Bennett has two appearances out of the bullpen and has given up just two hits in four innings of work

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