Great West picks Hilker as Player of the Week

By CLIFF MARTIN
Great West Conference

NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Northern Colorado senior Adam Hilker and Houston Baptist senior Dalton Schafer have been named Great West Conference Baseball Player and Pitcher of the Week, respectively, after both turned in outstanding performance last week.

The honors were announced Tuesday by the conference office.

Hilker, from Westminster, paced the Bears' offensive attack this past weekend against Pac-12-member Washington State with six hits in 13 at-bats for a .462 batting clip.

Batting in the 3-hole, Hilker produced his best game of the weekend in the Bears' 7-3 victory over the Cougars on Saturday, marking Northern Colorado's first victory against a major FBS program since 2009. The shortstop finished 3-for-4 in that game while scoring three runs and drawing a walk.

Hilker finished the weekend with a .500 on-base percentage and was solid defensively with 13 assists and seven putouts.

Schafer, a senior from Houston, Texas, pitched back-to-back complete games this week for the Huskies, going 1-1 with a 1.69 earned-run-average, seven strikeouts and no walks.

In Sunday's win against UT-Arlington, Schafer allowed one run on five hits and struck out four. He faced the minimum 18 batters through six innings, and, after the Huskies took a 15-1 lead, he struck out the side in the eighth to invoke the run rule.

In Tuesday's loss to No. 18 Texas, Schafer allowed two runs on seven hits and struck out three while throwing only 78 pitches. He held the Longhorns scoreless through six innings but couldn't get the offensive support.

Others nominated for weekly honors were Houston Baptist's Collin Hetzler (SS), NJIT's Matt Wecerle (OF) and DJ Roche (RHP), Northern Colorado's Nate Steinmetz (LHP), Texas-Pan American's Chris Torres (C) and Bryan Maxwell (RHP), and Utah Valley's Goose Kallunki (1B) and Adam Gunn (RHP).