BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — After taking two of three games at home against Kent State to open the 2010 season, WKU (2-1) hits the road for the first time to compete in the QTI Baylor Classic beginning Friday, hosted by Baylor University. The Hilltoppers will take on 29th-ranked Texas A&M on Friday at 6:00 PM, Texas State at 5:00 PM on Saturday and will face Baylor at 1:00 PM on Sunday. All four teams competing in the QTI Baylor Classic advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2009.
Complete game notes are available in .pdf form at the link at the bottom of the page.
The QTI Baylor Classic Tournament Central can be found at
this link.
Game 4:Friday, February 26 // 6:00 PM (CT)
WKU (2-1) vs. #29 Texas A&M (3-0)
Waco, Texas // Baylor Ballpark (5,000)
Pitching Probables:
WKU:
Matt Ridings (Senior RHP; 0-0, 13.50 ERA)
Texas A&M: Barret Loux (Junior RHP; 1-0, 1.80 ERA)
Game 5:Saturday, February 27 // 5:00 PM (CT)
WKU (2-1) vs. Texas State (3-0)
Waco, Texas // Baylor Ballpark (5,000)
Pitching Probables:
WKU:
Tanner Perkins (Freshman LHP; 1-0, 0.00 ERA)
Texas State: TBA
Game 6:Sunday, February 28 // 1:00 PM (CT)
WKU (2-1) at Baylor (3-1)
Waco, Texas // Baylor Ballpark (5,000)
Pitching Probables:
WKU:
Shane Cameron (Senior RHP; 0-0, 3.86 ERA)
Baylor: Willie Kempf (Senior RHP; 1-0, 0.00 ERA)
• LEADING OFF: WKU begins play in the QTI Baylor Classic with a Friday night matchup with Texas A&M. Also participating this weekend is the host Baylor and Texas State. Each of the four teams in the QTI Baylor Classic participated in the NCAA Tournament in 2009.
• LOOKING BACK: In one of just three opening-weekend matchups of two 40-win teams from 2009, WKU took two-of-three from Kent State at Nick Denes Field. The Hilltoppers dropped the first game of the season, 13-10, but came back to win the next two games behind solid pitching and double-digit hit totals in each game. It was WKU’s 13th-straight home weekend series win.
• SCOUTING THE AGGIES: Texas A&M enters competition in the QTI Baylor Classic with a 3-0 record and a number 29 national ranking by Collegiate Baseball. The Aggies return five position player starters and 10 pitchers from a 2009 team that participated in the NCAA Forth Worth Regional. Texas A&M is coming off an opening-weekend sweep of Seton Hall.
• BELMONT POSTPONED: The February 24 game at Belmont has been postponed due to anticipated inclement weather in the Nashville area. The game has been rescheduled for March 3 at 3:00 PM.
• RIDINGS NATION’S LEADER: Entering the 2010 season, WKU pitcher Matt Ridings was the nation’s current active leader in both victories (25) and strikeouts (271). Fellow pitcher Bart Carter was tied for 10th in wins (18) among active hurlers to start the season.
• RIDINGS RIGHT AT THE TOP: WKU senior pitcher Matt Ridings is poised to etch his name at the top of the WKU record books in his final season on the Hill in 2010. He enters the season within striking distance of five Hilltopper pitching records, including wins and innings pitched. He became the school’s all-time career strikeout record-holder with his first punch-out of the season against Kent State on February 19, and he is four victories away from the all-time record in wins. He can also become WKU’s all-time pitching leader in games started, innings pitched and decisions.
• HILLTOPPER IRONMAN: Senior infielder Jake Wells has started 124 straight games, dating back to the first game of the 2008 season against Bowling Green State. Before a start at third base in the season opener on February 19, each of the previous 121 consecutive starts had been at first base.
• NOT SHOWING THEIR AGE: Freshmen Tanner Perkins and Taylor Haydel combined on a four-hit shutout of Kent State on Saturday, one day after the Golden Flashes offense banged out 16 hits and scored 13 runs. Perkins threw six innings and struck out six, and Haydel earned the three-inning save without allowing a hit. Neither hurler allowed a walk. The duo pitched WKU to its first shutout victory since April 19, 2009.
• NEWCOMERS COMING UP BIG: In the first three games of the 2010 season, three newcomers have appeared in the WKU lineup and each has proven effective. Ryan Huck was 2-for-3 in both Friday and Sunday’s games, and Matt Borgschulte drove in four runs in a 2-for-5 performance on Saturday after driving in one on Friday. He also added a double on Sunday. Chris Bullard was 1-for-4 with an RBI on Saturday as well.
• BOUNCING BACK: After allowing 13 runs on 16 hits in the series opener against Kent State on Friday, the WKU pitching staff responded by holding the Golden Flashes to just three runs and 12 hits in the final two games of the series. In addition, WKU hurlers limited Kent State to only four hits after the sixth inning all weekend.
• GETTING THE JOB DONE: Of the 36 WKU hits in the first three games of the 2010 season, just five of them were of the extra-base variety, meaning that WKU took advantage of 29 singles. In fact, after a Kes Carter double in the fourth inning of Friday’s game, there was a stretch of 27 consecutive hits being singles for the Hilltoppers, extending to the eighth inning of Sunday’s series finale.
• HOME SWEET HOME: WKU has won its last 13 weekend series at Nick Denes Field.
• RETURN OF RYE DAVIS: Rye Davis pitched two scoreless innings over two outing opening weekend against Kent State, marking his first appearances since May 31, 2008. Davis is returning from a career-threatening eye injury that cost him the entire 2009 season.
• RIDINGS SETS STRIKEOUT RECORD: With his first strikeout against Kent State in the season opener on February 19, the 265th of his career, Matt Ridings became the school’s all-time leader in career strikeouts.
• MR. ALL-AMERICAN: Junior catcher Matt Rice was named a first-team preseason All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA). It is the third straight season that WKU has had an NCBWA Preseason All-American, as Chad Cregar was voted to the first team in 2009 and the second team in 2008.
• PAYTON NAMED CANDIDATE FOR LOWE’S SENIOR CLASS AWARD: Matt Payton has been named one of 30 candidates for the 2010 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, which is given annually to one senior student-athlete who has notable achievements in four areas of excellence. The list of candidates will be trimmed to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, and voting will be opened to the public to determine the winner.
• FOUR VOTED TO PRESEASON TEAM: Senior pitchers Matt Ridings and Bart Carter, junior catcher Matt Rice and senior second baseman Matt Payton were named Preseason All-Sun Belt Conference. The four selections from WKU were the most by a single school in 2010.
• PRESEASON RESPECT: In the 2010 Preseason Coaches Poll, league coaches predicted WKU to finish second in the conference in 2010. The Hilltoppers checked in 11 points behind first-place Middle Tennessee, and received two first-place votes, compared to the Blue Raiders’ eight.
• CHALLENGES THROUGHOUT: The 2010 WKU baseball schedule is loaded with quality opponents from top to bottom. The first three weekend series feature games against teams that either went to the NCAA Tournament or won their conference in 2009, and games against Southeastern Conference foes Tennessee, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Kentucky highlight the midweek schedule. In all, WKU is scheduled to play 13 games against NCAA Tournament teams from last season in 2010.
• CONFERENCE POWER: With Middle Tennessee and WKU earning bids to the NCAA Tournament in 2009, the Sun Belt Conference has now seen multiple teams placed in the field of 64 for 21 straight seasons.
• RIVALS LOVES FINWOOD: WKU head coach Chris Finwood found himself in elite company during the offseason, as national collegiate baseball writer Kendall Rogers of rivals.com listed him as one of the nation’s rising coaches and one of the nation’s hottest coaches in two articles in December 2009. Rogers says that “Finwood is one of the few mid-major coaches to watch in the near future,” and that he is “[q]uietly one of the hottest coaches in America.”
• BULLARD BACK TO BASEBALL: Junior Chris Bullard, a linebacker on the WKU football team, will be playing baseball at WKU for the first time in 2010. A 45th-round draft choice by the Los Angeles Angels out of high school in 2007, the Cataula, Ga., native will contend for time in the outfield and at designated hitter.
• TURN ON THE TUBE: WKU’s game at Troy on May 1 and the May 22 showdown at home against Middle Tennessee will be broadcast live on the Sun Belt Network. Game times are 3:00 PM (CT) and 6:00 PM (CT), respectively.
• WKU ACADEMIC SUCCESS: In the first semester of the 2009-10 academic year at Western Kentucky University, 25 of 35 WKU baseball players on the fall roster recorded a GPA of 3.0 or higher - an outstanding 71 percent of the squad. In all, 213 student-athletes at WKU are maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or higher, which represents 52 percent of WKU’s 412 student-athletes. Nine of WKU’s 19 programs have a cumulative team GPA of 3.0 or higher, and the average GPA for all student-athletes is 2.93.
• A SEASON TO REMEMBER: The 2009 WKU baseball season will go down as one of the finest seasons in school history. The Hilltoppers won the Sun Belt Conference championship, its first since joining the league in 1983, en route to a 40-win season and a second-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. WKU made waves in the NCAA Oxford Regional, defeating Missouri twice and number-eight Mississippi once before being eliminated in a winner-take-all regional final by the host Rebels. Head coach Chris Finwood’s fourth Hilltopper squad finished the season with a 42-20 record, the team’s first 40-win season since 1988.
• NATIONAL RECOGNITION: WKU found themselves ranked 23rd in the final Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll, its first national ranking since 2001.
• SUN BELT CONFERENCE HARDWARE: In addition to the Sun Belt Conference championship trophy, a pair of Hilltoppers picked up individual conference accolades in 2009. Head coach Chris Finwood was named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year, and senior Matt Hightower was named Sun Belt Conference Pitcher of the Year.
• TAKING NOTICE: WKU third baseman Wade Gaynor completed a remarkable 2009 season, and people on the national stage took notice. Gaynor was named an All-American by both the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) and Baseball America.
• TOURNAMENT TIME: A quartet of Hilltoppers excelled in both the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and the NCAA Tournament in 2009, picking up all-tournament honors. Outfielder Chad Cregar, third baseman Wade Gaynor and catcher Matt Rice were all named to the All-NCAA Tournament Team, and pitcher Bart Carter picked up All-Sun Belt Conference Tournament recognition.
• GOING STREAKING: Junior catcher Matt Rice put together a school-record 31-game hitting streak last season from March 1-April 17. He hit .425 (57-for-134) during the streak.
• DEFENSIVE PROWESS: Chris Finwood-coached squads pride themselves on defense, and 2009 was no exception. The Hilltoppers finished the season with a .979 fielding percentage, tops in the Sun Belt Conference and third-best in the nation.
• CONSISTENT HITTING: WKU recorded a .330 team batting average in 2009, good for second in the conference and 23rd nationally.
• CHICKS DIG THE LONG BALL: The Hilltoppers blasted 88 home runs in 2009, an average of 1.4 per game.
• DEFENDING THE HOME FIELD: WKU was an outstanding 27-3 at home in 2009. The 27 home wins are tied for the most in a single season in Nick Denes Field history, and the .900 winning percentage is tops all-time in the history of the Nick.
• THE 1,500 MARK: With two wins against Albany on March 1, 2009, WKU surpassed the 1,500-win plateau in 90 seasons of baseball.
• FINNY WINS 100TH GAME: In 2009, WKU head coach Chris Finwood became just the fourth Hilltopper head coach to reach 100 wins since 1923.
• MOVING ON: Six Hilltoppers were selected in the 2009 Major League Baseball First-Year Players Draft, the most in a single draft in Hilltopper baseball history. Wade Gaynor became the highest drafted player in WKU baseball history when he was selected in the third round by the Detroit Tigers. Also hearing their names called were J.B. Paxson (13th round, Los Angeles Dodgers); Chad Cregar (15th round; Florida); Terrence Dayleg (22nd round; Florida); Matt Ridings (25th round; Washington) and Evan Teague (35th round; Toronto).
