Wednesday, March 25, 2015

PORTLAND, Ore. – Forty-nine days after the start of the 2015 baseball season, Montana State Billings will finally get an opportunity to play on its home field.

The Yellowjackets will play their first home series at Dehler Park Friday and Saturday. Their next five series in fact will also be at the park with their next road contest coming on May 1.

MSUB swept Northwest Nazarene last week, jumping to second in the GNAC standings with a 6-5 record. The ‘Jackets also earned Red Lion Hotels co-Team of the Week honors for their performance.

It’s fitting that their first home game would be against the other co-Team of the Week, Saint Martin’s.

The Saints were able to sweep the ninth-ranked team in last week’s NCBWA West region poll as they moved into third place in the GNAC with a 6-6- record.

Between the two teams, the Yellowjackets and the Saints were also able to sweep the weekly player awards including the Saints Carl Svanevik who was also honored as the NCBWA West Region Player of the Week.

Svanevik went 8-16 on the weekend, driving in nine runs while scoring four himself. The senior outfielder also connected on three home runs as he finished the series with a 1.125 slugging percentage.

Svanevik becomes the second GNAC player this season to win the NCBWA West Region weekly award, joining MSUB’s Luke Reinschmidt who won it Feb. 16-22. The MSUB senior was also selected as the National Player of the Week as well.

The winner of this series will take control of second place in the GNAC standings and put pressure on conference leader Western Oregon which has at least a three game lead over the rest of the GNAC.

After a week off, the GNAC’s top team will face the only conference opponent it hasn’t played yet this season in Northwest Nazarene. This will be the Wolves first road games in three weeks.

Central Washington will take to the road this week as well facing the Oregon Institute of Technology in a doubleheader Thursday before playing a four-game series in Alameda, Calif., against Holy Names.

Notes:

• Six GNAC pitchers went at least six innings while striking out five or more batters last week. Five of them were in the MSUB-NNU series. 
   
• MSUB Pitchers dominated in their series this weekend, posting a 1.69 ERA while allowing only six runs to cross the plate. MSUB pitchers also struck out 40 batters while allowing eight walks. All four Yellowjacket starters lasted over five innings while striking out a combined 30 batters as well.
   
• Eighty-four of Northwest Nazarene’s 266 hits, almost a third, have been extra-base hits including a GNAC-high 61 doubles. The Crusaders also rank fourth nationally in triples.
   
• Saint Martin’s Svanevik and Montana State Billings Kyle Durbin shared GNAC Player of the Week honors in helping their teams to series sweeps. Svanevik had three home runs and nine RBI’s while Durbin hit two game-winning two-run doubles in the first day of the series. The Yellowjackets Cody Cooper was awarded Pitcher of the Week honors after picking up his first win of the season. He went seven innings of four-hit ball in his complete-game shutout while striking out a season-high 10 batters.