VANCOUVER - Having spent most of their season on the road, the UBC Thunderbirds (21-6, 14-2) will now try to get accustomed to their home field in the month of April. This weekend they kick-off of a stretch of 15 straight home games against NAIA competition with a pair of doubleheaders against Corban College (8-20, 2-11) at Thunderbird Park.
Friday's games begin at 12:00 p.m. with Saturday's back-to-back affair beginning at 11:00 a.m. All four games will be broadcast by
CiTR.
A look at the Thunderbirds
UBC currently occupies top spot in the NAIA West standings with a 14-2 conference record and a league leading 21-6 mark overall. This season, the T-Birds are a perfect 12-0 on the road in NAIA West play while they split their only home series to date with second-place College of Idaho.
Rookies
Andrew Firth, Keaton Brisoce, and
Blake Carruthers pace a UBC offence that ranks second in NAIA west play with a .320 batting average and runs per game (7.35). Firth is second overall in the NAIA West with a sparkling .438 batting average and has chipped in with two home runs and 17 RBIs. Briscoe (.394, 3 HR, 18 RBI, 17 BB) and Carruthers (.368, 5 HR, 22 RBI) have been more than solid offensively while also playing key roles in the field as the T-Birds starting third baseman and centre fielder respectively.
Seniors
Nic Lendvoy and
Sammie Starr are also playing big roles in their final tour of duty with the 'Birds. Lendvoy, the everyday DH, has hit a team-leading 10 doubles, five home runs, and 28 RBIs while Starr has been potent on offence (.343, nine 2B, 1 HR, 17 RBI) at the top of the order. The gold glove shortstop also anchors the league's best fielding defence. UBC has committed only 18 errors this year and sports a conference leading .981 fielding percentage.
T-Bird pitching this season has been solid but not perhaps as lights outs as originally projected. As a squad, they rank second in league play across the board in ERA (3.76), opponent batting average (.258), strikeouts (173), walks given (81), home runs allowed (15) which are very good numbers but arguably the best could be yet to come.
Brandon Kaye and
Eric Brown anchor the UBC rotation and are a combined 8-0 in 12 starts. Kaye sports a 2.37 ERA through 35.1 innings of work, having surrendered only 11 earned runs. Brown has been extremely efficient with a 2.80 ERA and a 5-0 record while striking out 25 and only walking eight.
Lefties
Sheldon McDonald (2.97 ERA, 3-2, 27 K, 6 BB) and
Mark Hardy (4.79 ERA, 2-2, 32 K, 13 BB) round out the rotation and are both legitimate pro prospects when they are on. Consistency, to date, has been that duo's biggest issue. Situational relievers
Miles Verweel and
David Otterman have been solid for the T-Birds while Dan Britton-Foster,
Taylor King, and
Shawn Hetherington offer big talent out of the pen.
A look at the Warriors
It's been a long season for Corban as they sit last in the NAIA West with a 2-11 league record (.154) and are 8-20 on the season. They picked up their only two conference victories at home over Simpson (4-12) two weeks ago and are 0-4 this season against the T-Birds.
Their lack of wins isn't due to poor performance on offence as they rank fourth out of eight NAIA west teams in batting average, clipping along at a very respectable .284. Luke Balbas (.361) leads a group of eight regulars who are all batting above .295. The Warriors don't have great power numbers, they've only hit 18 home runs compared to 33 by their opponents, and their strong batting average hasn't brought much success in knocking in runs as they have scored only 148 times (43 less than UBC).
On the mound, the Warriors lack a true ace as their top four starters all have ERAs above 4.38 and out of the bullpen, they have only one pitcher with an ERA under 3.38. Their team defence hasn't helped their pitchers much this year, as Corban has committed as league worst 70 errors and rank last with a .932 fielding percentage.
Last meetings
The T-Birds traveled to Salem, OR for a pair of double headers at Volcanoes Stadium in early March (moved to that location due to bad weather), notching the weekend sweep with wins of 8-3, 9-2, 7-1, and 4-3. In that weekend's series finale, the T-Birds got a big two-out rally in the top of the seventh to score the winning run.
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