@NCBearsBaseball Warm Up For WAC Tournament Against Seattle

Northern Colorado baseball honors its seniors this weekend and prepares to head to Mesa, Ariz. for the WAC Tournament next week.

Games 44-46
Who: Seattle 26-25, 16-8 WAC
When: Thursday, May 14 - Saturday, May 16
Where: Greeley, Colo., Jackson Field
Series History: Seattle 5-1, last meeting April 13, 2014 (SU 6-0)
Game Notes: Northern Colorado | WAC

Probable Starters

Game	Seattle	Northern Colorado	Game Links
Thursday, May 14 at 3:00 pm	LHP Will Dennis (6-4, 2.86 ERA)	LHP Dylan Shiraki (2-3, 7.41 ERA)	Live Stats \| Audio
Friday, May 15 at 2:00 pm	RHP Skyler Genger (5-6, 3.05 ERA)	LHP Matt Loutzenhiser (1-2, 5.08 ERA)	Live Stats \| Audio
Saturday, May 16 at 11:00 am	LHP Tarik Skubal (5-4, 3.58 ERA)	TBD	Live Stats \| Audio

First Pitch
• Northern Colorado closes out WAC regular season play hosting Seattle U who comes in playing for the one seed in the conference tournament
• UNC has already clinched a spot in the WAC Tournament next week in Mesa, Ariz. The Bears will be anywhere from the 4-6 seed.
• Jensen Park continues to knock the ball around the park raising his batting average to .429 on the year. He is in the middle of a 12 game hit streak and hitting .511 in conference play.
• Due to weather issues this is UNC's first home game since April 21st when they played Metro State. The Bears have played nine straight games on the road
• This weekend's series will be the last at Jackson Field for seniors Jensen Park, Reyn Sugai, Josh Wagner, Bryan Tibbitts, Brandon Vaughn, and Caleb Kirkman.
• Both Jenens Park and Dan Reese extended their hit streaks into double figures over the past weekend. Park's now sits at 12 games, while Reese's is at 11.
• Jake Garcia also extended his hit streak to six games.

Scouting the Redhawks
Seattle comes into Jackson Field this weekend looking to secure the top seed in next week's WAC Tournament. Coming into the weekend Seattle is a half-game ahead of Bakersfield. The Redhawks have a solid pitching staff that is posting a 3.72 ERA this year. Their top three starters in Will Dennis, Skyler Genger, and Tarik Skubal all have sub 4.00 ERAs. At the plate, SU is led by the trio of Griffin Andreychuk, Landon Cray, and Sheldon Stober. Andreychuk and Cray are both hitting above .300. The three have combined for 89 of the teams 230 RBIs this season. Last weekend Seattle took two out of three from Chicago State.

The Race to Mesa
The field is set for this year's WAC tournament in Mesa, Ariz. Northern Colorado, Seattle U, Bakersfield, Sacramento State, North Dakota and Utah Valley have all qualified for the double elimination tournament at the Oakland A's spring training facility, Hohokam Stadium. Grand Canyon is inelligible for the tournament as they continue their transition into becoming a full-time Division I member. The seeding for the tournement will be set after this weekend as all six seeds are still unclaimed.

Who are You?
Fans will have to purchase a program to learn all the new faces on the Bears baseball team this year. Overall the team has 21 newcomers. There are 13 transfers and eight freshman that make up the group of 21.

Hits King
Jensen Park became the leading hitter in Northern Colorado last weekend with his first hit against Utah Valley on Sunday. Park passed Kevin Sandberg (2006-09) who had 243 career hits. He currently has 266 hits going into the weekend.

Nationally Ranked
Jensen Park leads the WAC with a .429 batting average and ranks 4th overall in the nation.

Getting Offensive
The Bears have one of the best offenses in the WAC, ranked second in batting average (.284), slugging percentage (.387), and on base percentage (.365).

Moving the Runners
Jake Ek ranks 6th nationally with 14 sacrifice bunts this season. His 14 sacrifice bunts have helped produce eight runs for UNC.

He Gets On Base
Seniors Jensen Park ranks in the top five in the conference in OBP with a mark of .473, just .001 behind Logan Landon of UTPA who leads the conference.

Second Time Around
It is well known is baseball that batters hit better the second time around when facing a pitcher. For Northern Colorado, they hope as a team they have more success in the WAC. Northern Colorado competed in its first season in the WAC last year, going 4-23.

Proud Tradition
Northern Colorado has been to 10 College World Series, which still ranks among the top 15 in the history of the CWS. There have only been 14 teams to make it the Omaha double digit times. The last time UNC made it was in 1974. Texas has the most CWS appearances with 34.

Proud Alum
Baseball is one of three sports at Northern Colorado (football, women's golf) with an alumnus as the head coach. Carl Iwasaki played for the Bears from 1981-84. Coach Iwasaki is not the only alum on the baseball staff, assistant coach Patrick Perry is an alum of the Northern Colorado too, graduating in 2009. This is his sixth year as the team's hitting coach.

New Territory
The WAC is the fifth conference the Bears have belonged to in the history of the program (Rocky Mountain Conference, Great Plains Athletic Conference, North Central Conference, Great West Conference). The team was also a Division I independent from 1976-90 and 2004-09.

Home Grown
Head coach Carl Iwasaki has done a great job of getting kids from Colorado to stay in-state. The Bears roster is comprised of 17 players from Colorado.

Against the WAC
Northern Colorado is 88-121 overall against the WAC. Since joining the league last season, UNC is 16-32.

On Deck
The Bears head down to the desert for the WAC Conference Tournament next week in Mesa, Ariz. UNC will be anywhere from the 4-6 seed and its first game will be on Wednesday May 20th.