Jacket Baseball Back in Action Tuesday (4/10/06)

BILLINGS, MT – The Montana State-Billings baseball team continues its 22-game stretch of home games on Tuesday with a doubleheader against Central Washington University.  First pitch is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. at Cobb Field.  Using the Great Northwest Athletic Conference rules for doubleheaders, the first game will be nine innings and the second will be seven innings.

The Yellowjackets are coming off a rollercoaster weekend during which they upset St. Edward’s University twice on Friday and were pounded by the Hilltoppers twice on Saturday.  The Jackets’ Matt Kakalecik (Fr., Great Falls, MT) was the hero of Friday, hitting a walk-off home run in the opening game to give MSUB a 6-5 win.  The Yellowjackets completed the sweep with a 5-0 win in the second game.

The Yellowjackets’ fortunes turned sharply on Saturday.  St. Edward’s showed why they are one of the top teams in the Heartland Conference, sweeping the doubleheader with wins of 17-1 and 10-6.  The weekend split left the Yellowjackets at 9-23 overall and 7-17 in the Heartland Conference. 

After starting the season, and the new era of Yellowjacket Baseball after a hiatus of 30 years, with 18-straight losses, MSUB has made steady improvements over the past few weeks.  Through those first 18 losses the Jackets batted a combined .199 and had an earned run average over 10.  In the 14 games since, the Yellowjackets have batted .276 as a team and the pitching staff has posted a 4.79 ERA.  MSU Billings is 9-5 in those games.

Kyle Pryor (Jr., Billings, MT) is the Jackets’ leading hitter with a .281 average.  He is one of just four players to start all 32 games thus far.  Pryor leads the team in batting average, total hits (27), and stolen bases (10).  He is also tied for third on the team with 14 runs scored.  Willie Crtalic (Jr., Billings, MT) is batting .264 in 32 games and leads the team with 18 runs scored.  Luke Sansaver (Jr., Wolf Point, MT) and Nick Hoskyn (Jr., Oelwein, IA) share the team lead for RBI with 14 apiece.  Pryor, Crtalic, Hoskyn and Doug Longfellow (Jr., Lewistown, MT) have started all 32 games.

Seven different Yellowjacket pitchers have pitched at least 10 innings this season.  Nathan Herbig (Jr., Noxon, MT) leads the pack with 46 1/3 innings logged.  He is 1-5 with a 7.58 ERA.  Ben Lewerke (Jr., Mason City, IA) has appeared in more games than any Yellowjacket hurler, posting a 1-1 record and a 2.16 ERA in 25 innings of work.  He has started three games and appeared in relief in six others.  Kyle McBride (Jr., Billings, MT) and David Ducharme (Sr., Hamilton, MT) are the only MSUB pitchers with more than one victory, posting two victories each.

Central Washington enters the week with an 11-15 record.  The Wildcats started the year 10-5, but have lost 10 of their last 11 games.  Leadoff hitter Jamie Nilsen is batting .411 and leads the team with 30 runs scored.  Nilsen also has drawn a team-high 18 walks and has a .529 on base percentage.  Pitchers Mike Morris and Scott Parrish have combined for seven of the team’s 11 wins.  Morris is 3-0 with a solid 2.12 ERA.  Parrish is 4-3 with a 3.02 ERA.

Following Tuesday’s double-dip against the Wildcats, the Yellowjackets will host Lincoln University in a weekend conference series on Friday and Saturday.  The games will be important for the first-year Yellowjacket program with both MSUB and Lincoln entering the week with identical 7-17 league marks.