@NCBearsBaseball Heads to Nebraska for five games against Nebraska and Omaha

Tuesday, March 7

Lincoln, Neb.

12:35 pm

University of Northern Colorado

Nebraska

3/6/2017 8:30:00 PM | Baseball

UNC baseball is back on the road playing two at Nebraska and then three at Omaha

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

GREELEY – The Northern Colorado baseball team hits the road again this week, heading to Nebraska to face the Huskers and Omaha Mavericks for five games in total. The series against Nebraska-Omaha was planned for the weekend, but has been moved up to start now on Thursday, and then conclude with a doubleheader Friday due to weather.

Northern Colorado Game Notes

Leading Off
• Northern Colorado picked up its first series win of the season in its home opener against North Dakota State. The Bears took the four game series 3-1.
• UNC's offense continued its big hitting ways with a .328 batting average, recording 17 extra base hits, including six home runs. Six of the team's starters hit for over .300 in the series.
• The Bears pitching had a trio of quality starts from Aaron Hamilton, Keenan Lum and Troy Watson. Both Hamilton and Lum went six innings, while Watson went four innings in a seven inning game.
• Out of the team's first 20 games of the season, the four this weekend are the only ones at home.
• So far this season, UNC is 3-6 when playing away from Jackson Field.
• Northern Colorado's pitchers combined for 34 strikeouts on the weekend. Aaron Hamilton and Keenan Lum led the team with six each.
• This is the 14th straight season UNC and Nebraska have played each other. All, but two of those games have been played in Lincoln. The only two not were in 2011 at the Bearkat Invitational in Huntsville, Texas.
• Tuesday's game against Nebraska is the Huskers home opener.

Scouting Nebraska
Nebraska comes into the mid-week series with the Bears with a 3-6 record. All nine of their games have been played at a neutral site. Of the first nine games of the season for the Huskers, four have been against Top 25 ranked teams. UNL has just one win in those games, coming in the most recent outing against Arizona in a 1-0 game. Two Nebraska hitters are hitting over .300 for the season in Angello Altavilla at .400, and Mojo Hagge at .393. As a team, UNL has struggled hitting with a .217 batting average. On the mound, Nebraska's staff has combined for a 4.56 ERA. They have almost a two-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio at 61-to-35. The Huskers are led by sixth year head coach Darin Erstad.

Scouting Nebraska Omaha
Omaha enters the week with a 1-11 record on the season. The lone win came against UNLV in the first week of the season, dropping nine straight since then. Before taking on the Bears beginning Thursday, UNO will play at Kansas Wednesday. The Mavericks have struggled on offense this season, with a .194 batting average. The player with the highest batting average is Adam Caniglia at .268. While the offense has struggled, so has the pitching. They have a team ERA of 8.62. Opponents are hitting .362 against the Mavericks this season.

History Against Nebraska
The series between Nebraska and Northern Colorado dates back to 1986, with UNL holding a 43-6 advantage in the series. Of the 42 games played in Lincoln, UNC has won five of them. The other win came in Greeley, when Nebraska made its lone trip to Greeley in 1987.

History Against Nebraska Omaha
Northern Colorado and Nebraska-Omaha have split the 40 games between the two teams. The first being played in 1973 with UNC winning 11-1. UNO holds an 8-6 record when playing in Omaha.

Along Came Pauley
Redshirt sophomore Jack Pauley has made an instant impact for Northern Colorado this season. He leads the team in batting average (.417), slugging (.688) and RBI (13).

He earned his first career WAC Hitter of the Week honor for his performance against NDSU. He hit .538 in the series with three extra base hits including a pair of homers. He led the team seven RBI and six runs scored.

Bears Dig The Long Ball
UNC can hit the long ball. The team has 17 home runs this season including five of multi-home run games. The team ranks ninth in the NCAA in home runs hit.

Over the first two weeks the team hit 11 home runs, they added another six to its total this past week. Jack Pauley and Cole Maltese hit two each. Of those six Sam Leach hit one, his first of his career.

Eight different Bears have hit a long ball this season, led by Cole Maltese's five, which puts him ninth in the nation.

Quality Starts
Quality starts can go a long way to helping a pitching staff, and is something UNC was able to do three times last week. The Bears received the quality start from Aaron Hamilton, Troy Watson and Keenan Lum. This helped Northern Colorado keep its arms in the bullpen fresh.

14 K Gold Performance
Aaron Hamilton turned in a performance for the ages last Friday night against San Jose State. He pitched a complete game two-hit shutout striking out 14, and allowing no walks. The 14 strikeouts tied a school-record, with Donnie Alexander.

He followed it up last Friday with a quality start for UNC going six innings allowing just two runs on four hits, while striking out six and walking just one.

For the season Hamilton is 1-1 with a 2.65 ERA, he has struck out 21 and walked just five over 17 innings pitched.

Close Calls
One or two run ball games have been common for Northern Colorado this season, through the first 13 games, seven have been decided by that margin. UNC is 4-3 in those games.

New Faces
Fans are going to need to keep a roster page handy for the first few weeks of the season as UNC welcomes 19 newcomers this year. The group of 19 is a mixture of true freshmen and junior college transfers.

Three of the fresh faces for the Bears are receiving some attention nationally. They are RHP Aaron Hamilton, OF Jack Pauly and RHP Troy Watson. DIBaseball.com rated both Hamilton and Pauly as some of the top draft prospects for the 2017 and 2018 draft, respectively from the WAC. Watson was ranked the No. 3 impact freshman for this season.

UNC also welcomes Nate Rasmussen as a volunteer assistant to staff. Rasmussen will serve as outfield coach, first base coach, and camp director as well as assisting hitters.

During the first weekend of play, Northern Colorado saw 12 different newcomers make their debut for the team. In that group included starters Jack Pauley, Evan Johnson, Alex Kiel and pitchers Sam Leach, Aaron Hamilton and Troy Watson.

Say W(h)atson?
Freshman Troy Watson earned his first career start Tuesday when UNC took on San Francisco State. The righty from Texas didn't disappoint either. He went five and a third innings without allowing a hit to the Gators. His final line was six innings, two hits, two runs, both earned and three strike outs and walks. He ended up getting the win.

Interesting Ending
Northern Colorado's final game against San Francisco had a very interesting ending. First, the conclusion of the game was pushed to two days after it began due to darkness and weather. Then in the bottom of the 10th San Francisco's final two outs came when they were caught trying to steal second base.

Tanner on a Terror
Nick Tanner was the best Bear last season, earning second team All-WAC. He finished the 2016 season with a slash line of .327/.401/.388 and added one home run along with 15 RBIs. Tanner was also one of UNC's key pitchers, finishing with a 4-1 record. His team leading 2.89 ERA was good for third in the conference and 158th in the nation. Tanner pitched in a team-high 53 innings with 33 strikeouts and 13 walks during the season.

He hit an impressive and important home run for UNC last Friday over the right field fence to give the team a 6-5 lead. The Bears would go on to win the game 7-5.

Exceeding Expectations
In the preseason WAC coaches poll, Northern Colorado has been picked to finish eighth in the conference for the second consecutive year. The Bears will need to surprise the teams in the conference in order to book a trip to Mesa, Arizona at the end of May.

UNC has been able to exceed expectations the past two seasons. Last year the team was picked to finish eighth and ended up fifth in the conference. While in 2014 Northern Colorado was picked last, but finished seventh in the WAC.

Following the Bears
Want to stay up to date with all things UNC Bears Baseball? There are a few ways to. During all games this year there will be live updates on the team's Twitter account @NCBearsBaseball.

For home games there will also be a live audio broadcast of the games as well as live stats on UNCBears.com.

Making the Grades
There were seven UNC players who earned spots on the 2016 Academic Honors list. Those earning honors are Jake Garcia, Cam Huber, Brett Minnick, Cole Maltese, Dan Reese, Payton Tapia, Corey Nakakura.

Wild Wild West
The Bears roster is comprised of almost every state in the western part of the US. Eleven different states are represented on the roster, as far east as Nebraska and as west as Hawaii.

Home Grown
Head coach Carl Iwasaki and his staff have done a good job of keeping the home grown talent in the state. 12 of UNC's 35 hail from the Centennial State.

Hawaiian Connection
The Bears have four players who hail from Hawaii plus head coach Carl Iwasaki and assistant Kaiona Correa all coming to Colorado from the islands.

Class of 2018
Help arrives for Northern Colorado with eight new players joining their roster for the 2018 season. The Bears add three infielders, a catchers, two utility players and a pair of right handed pitchers.

On Deck
After the trip to Nebraska, Northern Colorado will make a pit stop to Wichita State on the way back home from Nebraska to play the Shockers for a pair of game on March 14 and 15.

In the Hole
UNC is off next weekend, but returns to action on March 21 when they host Regis at 2 pm.