ADRIAN, Mich. – The Adrian College baseball team opens the MIAA Tournament on Wednesday afternoon as the No. 2 Bulldogs host the No. 3 Hope College Flying Dutchmen. Adrian enters the MIAA Tournament with a 26-14 record and sit 15-6 in conference play. Hope enters with a 24-16 record and sit 13-8 in conference play.
Adrian College and Hope College only finished one of the three games scheduled for its regular season series. The Bulldogs took game one of the series, 11-3, before games two and three resulted in a forfeit for both teams after a play caused the benches to clear. Due to NCAA rules, every player that exited the dugout was ejected and had to serve a one-game suspension.
The Bulldogs are led by
Nic Bruder who was recently named the MIAA Batting Champion after posting a .448 average in conference play. Bruder is batting .397 on the season with 62 hits, ten doubles, a triple, and 28 RBIs.
David Kedrow is second on the team in batting average at .348.
AJ Miranda is hitting .347 for Adrian followed by
Edward Wagner at .338 and
Joe Casale at .325. Miranda leads the team with 38 RBIs on the season with the help of five home runs while
Ryan Davis has 30 RBIs on the season with four homers.
On the mound,
Jakob Charles leads Adrian with an 8-1 record on the season in ten starts. He's compiled a 3.52 ERA with one shutout and two complete games in 64 innings.
Jaxon Clark is 5-3 on the season for Adrian in nine starts with a 3.98 ERA, while
Daniel Gutierrez sits 3-2 on the year with a 5.01 ERA and leading the team in strikeouts with 54.
The Bulldogs will look to take down Hope College in the opening round who have hitters ranked second, third, and fourth in batting average in the MIAA during the conference season. Hope will most likely look to their No. 1 starter on the mound, Trent Johnson, who is 6-4 on the season with a 3.68 ERA, three complete games, a shutout, and 52 strikeouts in 73.1 innings pitched.
The winner of Wednesday's game will advance to the winner's bracket championship and face the winner of No. 1 Kalamazoo College and No. 4 Alma College. The losers of both games will face off in an elimination game. After Wednesday, the remaining MIAA Tournament games will take place at Kalamazoo College on Thursday and Friday. The winner of the MIAA Tournament will earn an Automatic Bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Wednesday's game against Hope College will take place at Nicolay Field at 4:00 PM. Due to the MIAA Tournament, fans will need to purchase tickets and present a QR Code at the gate. Tickets can be purchased by clicking
HERE.
