Pacific University Athletics

Baseball Weekly Notebook

3/12/2012 5:53:00 PM

QUICK LINKS: Schedule & Results | Roster | Statistics | NWC Standings | NWC Statistics | NWC Baseball Home | D3Baseball.com

THIS WEEK IN PACIFIC BASEBALL
PACIFIC AT CORBAN
Game No. 17/Away Game No. 9
Tues., Mar. 13, 3 p.m., Volcanoes Stadium, Salem, Ore.
Live Stats: sidearmstats.com/corban/baseball/scoreboard.aspx

LEWIS & CLARK AT PACIFIC
Games No. 18 & 19/Home Games No. 7 & 8
Sat., Mar. 17, 11 a.m., Chuck Bafaro Stadium, Forest Grove
Live Stats: www.goboxers.com/livestats

LEWIS & CLARK AT PACIFIC
Game No. 20/Home Game No. 9
Sun., Mar. 18, Noon, Chuck Bafaro Stadium, Forest Grove
Live Stats: www.goboxers.com/livestats

BOXERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF UNEXPECTED HOME GAMES
The wet Northwest weather played to the Pacific baseball team's advantage this weekend with the move of their scheduled road series at George Fox to Chuck Bafaro Stadium.  The Boxers took two of three games from the Bruins to move into third place in the Northwest Conference standings.  Pacific will play a non-conference game with Corban on Tuesday before hosting Lewis & Clark over the weekend for a three-game NWC series.

BOXER BYTES
• Rob Dittrick threw his second complete game of the season, leading Pacific to a 7-1 victory over George Fox in Saturday's opener.  Dittrick improved to 3-1 by allowing one run on seven hits with seven strikeouts.  He also hit six batters in the wet conditions, finishing one short of the Pacific single game record.

• Chad Fahey threw his first complete game of the season to lead Pacific to a 3-0 shutout of the Bruins in Sunday's series finale.  Fahey allowed six hits with a walk and six strikeouts to improve to 2-1 on the season.  Fahey saw his earned run average drop over one point to 3.13.

• Jared Van Hoon and Nate Rasmussen each batted .500 in the three games for the Boxers.  Van Hoon went 7 for 14 with a double, a run batted in and two runs.  Rasmussen went 6 for 12 with two doubles, three runs, a RBI and a home run.  Rasmussen also amassed a .971 slugging percentage and a .538 on base percentage.

• Logan Moen performed well in his return to the starting lineup, going 2 for 4 in Saturday's opener with a pair of RBIs, including a single that started Pacific's three-run second inning.

• Pacific is performing best in pressure situations.  The Boxers are currently hitting .487 with a runner on third and less than two outs and are hitting .257 in two-out situations.  Pacific currently boasts a .481 success advancing runners percentage.

• The Boxers enter the week as the top fielding team in the NWC with a .970 fielding percentage.  Pacific has committed just 17 errors in 16 games.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
CORBAN
The Warriors, NAIA members of the Cascade Conference, enter the week with a 10-8 overall record.  Corban dropped three of four games over the weekend to NAIA regional rival British Columbia in games played at Volcanoes Stadium and Stayton High School.  The Warriors dropped 4-2 and 10-0 games on Friday.  Corban led 2-0 in the opener before the Thunderbirds scored three in the top of the fifth before British Columbia hurlers David Otterman and Matt Trimble combined for a one-hitter in the nightcap.  Corban outlasted the Thunderbirds 4-2 in Saturday's opener as pitchers Justin White and Jacob Kopra limited the visitors to three hits.  Colby Sokol led Corban with a 3 for 3 day.  The teams went to extra innings in Saturday's nightcap before British Columbia scored two runs in the top of the 10th to secure the 12-10 win.  Steven Blum had four hits to lead the Warriors.  Marc Gallegos leads the Corban offense with a .403 batting average with 31 hits, three doubles and seven runs batted in.  Starting pitcher Jake Balbas owns a 2.67 earned run average and a 1-3 record in five games, while White boasts an impressive 5-1 record in six starts with a 2.90 ERA.  As a team, Corban is batting .267 and the staff owns a 5.04 earned run average.  Jeff McKay is in his second season as Corban head coach.  Tuesday's game against the Warriors has been moved to Volcanoes Stadium in Salem due to unplayable field conditions at Warrior Field.

AGAINST BRADLEY: Pacific leads 13-6
LAST MEETING: Pacific won 10-5 in Stayton, Ore., on Apr. 5, 2011

LEWIS & CLARK
The Pioneers enter the week at 2-16 overall and are in eighth place in the NWC at 1-5.  Lewis & Clark returns to NWC play after playing four games in Phoenix, Ariz., over the weekend.  The Pioneers split a Saturday doubleheader with St. Mary's (Minn.), winning the opener 4-3 before dropping a 14-13, 10-inning game in the nightcap.  Mike Hathaway went the distance in the seven-inning win for the Pioneers.  On Sunday, L&C was a 14-9 loser to Wis.-La Crosse before taking a 10-9 loss to Springfield.  Updated statistics for the Pioneers including their four Arizona games were not yet available.  The previous weekend, Lewis & Clark lost two of three games to George Fox.  Entering last weekend, Nick Lavin led the L&C offense with a .404 average with 19 hits, right runs, two doubles, a home run and 10 runs batted in.  Starting pitcher Michael Ball was 1-2 with a 4.88 earned run average in three starts, having allowed 24 runs, 17 earned, in 31.1 innings.  As a team, L&C owned a .258 batting average and a 7.14 earned run average.  Tom Flynn is in his second year as Lewis & Clark head coach.

AGAINST BRADLEY: Pacific leads 36-17
LAST MEETING: Pacific won 12-10 in Forest Grove on Feb. 27, 2011

PACIFIC NEWS & NOTES
A COMPLETE LEFTY: A week after seeing a solid effort against Linfield go for a no decision, Chad Fahey (Sr., Keizer, Ore.) not only got his decision against George Fox, but put together an even better effort.  Fahey went the distance in the Boxers' 3-0 shutout of the Bruins on Sunday, allowing six hits and one walk while striking out six.  In the process, Fahey allowed just one runner past second base (that coming in the third inning) and alowed just one extra base hit. The win improved Fahey to 2-1 on the season and dropped his earned run average by over a point, from 4.37 to 3.13.  In a team-leading 31.2 innings (third most in the NWC), Fahey has allowed 11 runs and 25 hits and is holding opponents to a .231 batting average, the lowest for a Pacific starter.  Fahey ranks 10th in the NWC in earned run average and tied for third in wins and tied for ninth with his four starts.

NATE AND SWITCH: After missing the Linfield series for all but a critical pinch-hitting appearance with arm tendonitis, Nate Rasmussen (Sr., Sandy, Utah) make quite the impact in his return.  Rasmussen batted .500 in the George Fox series, going 6 for 12 with two doubles, three runs, a home run and two runs batted in.  He went 3 for 4 with two runs in the 7-1 Saturday opener and then added a 2 for 5 performance with a solo home run in the 6-5 loss in the nightcap.  He amassed a .917 slugging percentage in the series.  One of the team's top hitters, Rasmussen enters the week with a .310 average with 13 hits, four doubles and nine runs.

VAN HOON KEEPS THE HOT BAT: He found his hitting touch in the Linfield series and Jared Van Hoon (Sr., Lake Oswego, Ore.) continued to produce offensively during the George Fox series.  Van Hoon matched Nate Rasmussen with a .500 batting average against the Bruins, going 7 for 14 with a double, two runs and a run batted in.  Van Hoon went 3 for 5 with two runs scored in Saturday's opener and went 3 for 5 again in the nightcap.  He then went 1 for 4 in Sunday's game with a RBI single in the seventh.  After finishing .077 after the Boxers' seven-game trip to Hawaii, Van Hoon enters this week with a .302 batting average.  He currently owns a seven-game hitting streak and had hit .481 in the team's six conference games.  Van Hoon enters the week tied for first in the NWC with a triple, tied for seventh with five doubles, tied for ninth with 19 hits and 10th with his 63 at bats.

A CASE OF HIT AND MISS: It was not his prettiest outing ever, but Rob Dittrick's (Jr., Mililani, Hawaii) complete game victory over George Fox Saturday was good enough to do the job.  Dittrick allowed one run on seven hits with two walks and seven strikeouts to earn his third win of the season and his second complete game.  In the outing, though, Dittrick also hit six batters, which was aided by the wet conditions.  The six beaned batters was one short of the Pacific and former NCAA Division III record of seven batters hit by Adam Azril against Lewis & Clark on Mar. 29, 2005.  (Azril went on to allow just two hits in a complete game and won it 3-1.)

Hit batters aside, Dittrick continues to rank amongst the top pitchers in the NWC and in the West.  He saw his earned run average drop by almost another points over the weekend to 2.61, seventh best in the NWC and second among the league's regular starters.  He is tied for first in wins and starts (5), tied for second with two complete games, fifth with 31 innings pitched and is tied for seventh with 21 strikeouts.

DITTRICK, VAN HOON EARN CONFERENCE & REGIONAL HONORS: Rob Dittrick and Jared Van Hoon were honored for their roles in the monumental series victory over Linfield on Mar. 3-4.  Dittrick was named Northwest Conference Baseball Pitcher Student-Athlete of the Week for his five-hit complete game in the Mar. 3 opener against the Wildcats for a 7-1 victory.  His only run allowed was a solo home run in the top of ninth inning.  Van Hoon was named to the first ever D3Baseball.com Team of the Week for his impressive hitting against Linfield.  In the three-game series. Van Hoon batted .462 with six hits, three doubles, two runs and two runs batted in.  He had the two-out, bases-loading winning single in the bottom of the ninth in the Mar. 4 single game to complete Pacific's 6-5 come-from-behind victory over the Wildcats.

A LONG HOME STAND: Thanks to the move of last weekend's three-game NWC series from Newberg to Forest Gorve, Pacific is enjoying the benefit of a long string of conference games at Chuck Bafaro Stadium.  The Boxers will play their first three league series of the season at home.  The move also gives Pacific the benefit of a string of 12 of 13 games in the home confines between Mar. 3 and Mar. 26, with only the Tuesday game vs. Corban breaking up the string.  The move also means that Pacific will play five of their eight conference series at Chuck Bafaro Stadium.

SITUATIONALY STRONG: Since turning to conference play, Pacific has become quite adept at manufacturing runs.  In NWC contests, Pacific is currently batting .265 with runners in scoring position and has a 48.8 percent success rate in advancing runners.  The Boxers are even better in two out situations with the Boxers batting .314 with 13 runs batted in with two batters retired.

KEEPING TIGHT IN THE FIELD: Pacific's trend of keeping their fielding crisp has carried over from 2011 to 2012.  The Boxers enter the week carrying a league-leading .970 fielding percentage, having committed 17 errors in 16 games.  A total of 16 players are carrying a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage, six of whom are tied for first in the NWC having met the minimum of playing in 60 percent of the team's games.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: The three-game series against George Fox featured a rarity in college athletics as both teams featured a father-son combination.  Donnie Bradley (Fr., Beaverton, Ore.) is in his first season at Pacific playing for his father, Head Coach Greg Bradley.  Donnie Bradley made two starts for the Boxers in the Bruins' series in left field.  He was an Honorable Mention Oregon 6A All-State selection last year for Beaverton's Westview High School.  In the other dugout, George Fox Head Coach Marty Hunter was in his third season coaching his son, Taylor.  An All-Northwest Conference performer in 2009 before transferring to Oregon State for a year, Taylor is the Bruins' regular starter at shortstop.

HOMECOMING: The season-opening road trip to Hawaii was homecoming for eight players on the Pacific roster who hail from the Islands.  Hawaii has been a traditional recruiting ground for Pacific, both on the athletic fields and as part of the general student population.  Nearly a third of the undergraduate student body at Pacific is from Hawaii.  The list of Pacific baseball players includes NWC Pitcher of the Year Rob Dittrick (Jr., Mililani, Hawaii), Anson Arakaki (Jr., Hilo, Hawaii), Michael Arakaki (Jr., Mililani, Hawaii), Grant Gabriel (So., Honolulu, Hawaii), Mike Nagamine (Sr., Aiea, Hawaii), Brett Nakasone (Jr., Wahiawa, Hawaii), Nick Tasaka (Jr., Hawaii Kai, Hawaii) and Rylan Tomita (Jr., Honolulu, Hawaii).

SEASON PREVIEW: The complete 2012 Pacific baseball season preview can be found at http://www.goboxers.com/sports/2012/2/14/BB_0214120514.aspx?tab=baseball&path=baseball.

PACIFIC PICKED FOURTH IN PRESEASON POLL: After their breakout season in 2011, Northwest Conference coaches have picked the Boxers to finish four in 2012 according to the preseason poll released in January.  Pacific picked up 42 of a possible 80 points in the poll.  The Boxers finished tied for third last year with Pacific Lutheran, who is picked to finish third once again.  Linfield, which advanced to the NCAA Division III World Series, is picked to repeat as NWC champion in 2012, collecting 72 points and eight of nine first place votes.  Perennial NWC power George Fox is picked second with 52 points.