Baseball Preview: Blue Devils return to action at La Crosse

at UW-La Crosse: Live Stats

THIS WEEK'S GAMES:  The Blue Devils were scheduled to play Macalester College Monday, April 17, but that game has been postponed. The Blue Devils (6-17, 3-5 WIAC) will be at UW-La Crosse (12-11, 2-6 WIAC) Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23. Both days are scheduled to begin at noon.

THE BLUE DEVILS: The Blue Devils return 11 players from last year's team as Ben Kincaid is well into his first year as the head coach of the Blue Devils. Kincaid and his coaching staff will work with a relatively young group of players consisting of a roster that lists 15 freshmen and two seniors who have not played college-level baseball. Noah Brown and Derek Graves were WIAC honorable mention selections last season.  Brown, who hit .382 with 33 runs batted in, both team highs, played predominately at third base last season, but also played at shortstop and first base. Brown was the primary first baseman during his sophomore season

PITCHING STAFF:   Luke Eide has spent the most time of any Blue Devil on the hill this season and has yet a win to show for his work. The sophomore leads the team in strikeouts with 30, sixth in the WIAC. Eide has pitched 43.0 innings, starting seven games with a 5.23 ERA. Derek Graves, a 2016 All-WIAC honorable mention choice, faced the best the WIAC had to offer last season, finishing the season with an overall 5.58 ERA and 24 strikeouts. In conference games only, Graves dropped his ERA by more than a point to 4.33 and had 22 conference strikeouts. Graves this season has made four starts with six appearances, recording 18 strikeouts.  In addition to Graves and Eide on the mound, the Blue Devils return Max Sires, Wyatt Ernstmeyer and Paul Danczyk.  Ernstmeyer and Sires posted the top ERA marks on the team last season. This season, Ernstmeyer has an ERA of 6.48 in six appearances, striking out 10. Sires earned a season-opening 1-0 shutout win and is currently 2-4 overall with 13 strikeouts, throwing 35.0 innings. Tyler Christensen, a senior playing his first year of collegiate ball, has a 3-0 overall record with an ERA of 3.71 and 15 strikeouts over 26.2 innings pitched. The Blue Devils have done pretty well out of the pen. Freshman Casey Ryan picked up two saves against UW-Platteville and Brad Rindfleisch snared another. Ryan has worked 11.0 innings, but was tagged with his first loss last weekend in a 10-inning loss to conference favorite UW-Whitewater.  Rindfleisch needed to face only one batter to record a save against Platteville and has currently worked 10.1 innings with seven strikeouts.
 
HITTING THE BALL: Freshman Matt Emmer is leading the WIAC in batting average (57th in NCAA DIII), hitting .433 (26-60) with two doubles, 12 runs scored and nine RBI.  Jordan Wilson is leading the team in RBI with 15. The sophomore outfielder is hitting .241 (20-83) with five doubles. Freshman Joel Hollow is hitting .308 (16-52) with three doubles and seven RBI. Senior co-captain Noah Brown is hitting .288 (23-80) with 11 RBI and shares the team's home run lead with freshman catcher Tim Bott. Both Brown and Bott have two round trippers. Pitcher Derek Graves has played a couple of games as the designated hitter and his posting a .333 average (4-12) in limited at-bats. The senior co-captain hit a triple in his first at-bat this season.    | 2017 Statistics

UW-STOUT LAST TIME OUT:  Stout lost all four contests to UW-Whitewater. The games were originally scheduled for Menomonie, but poor field conditions due to weather forced the games to Whitewater. On the second day, freshman catcher Tim Bott collected four RBI over the two games, including a three-run home run against the Warhawks, but it wasn't enough as the Blue Devils were swept by Whitewater. Bott's three-run dinger gave Stout a 3-0 lead in the third game of the series, but the Warhawks chipped away and won the game on a two-run home run in the 10th inning.  | Game Story One | Game Story Two |

WIAC PRESEASON: UW-Stout is picked to finish sixth in the WIAC, according to a preseason poll conducted by the conference. UW-Whitewater is picked first, followed by UW-La Crosse, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Platteville.


UW-LA CROSSE:  The Eagles sit at 12-11 on the season, with a 2-6 WIAC record. Their two WIAC wins came in two shutouts against UW-Oshkosh. Nate Heili leads the Eagles in batting average .349. in 83 at bats, Heili has five doubles and 11 RBIs. Brady Stolzman is just behind hitting .333 in 69 at bats. Nate Roethle and Heili have both stolen 10 bases, ranking third and fourth, respectively, scoring exactly half of La Crosse's stolen bases as a team. Heili has been caught stealing only once and Roethle not at all. Caleb Boushley has a 1.69 ERA in seven appearances for the Eagles. He has tallied four wins in 55 innings pitched and has matched that number in strikeouts with 55, leading the league in strikeouts. Boushley last season was selected as an All-American and was the WIAC pitcher of the year. Jameson Lavery has notched 23 striketouts over 36.1 innings pitched. As a team, the Eagles have the top combined ERA in the league at 3.06. But offensively, the only to team to score fewer runs has been Stout.  | 2017 Statistics

LAST TIME STOUT AND LA CROSSE MET: Stout fell to the Eagles in all four contests last season, which included some nasty weather and shortened the last game to a seven inning, 7-0, rainout win for La Crosse. In the second game of the first double header, Noah Brown had four hits in five at bats. | Games One and Two | Games Three and Four


2017 TEAM CAPTAINS: Team captains for the 2017 season are seniors Noah Brown and Derek Graves.

AWARDS AND HONORS: Max Sires was selected as the WIAC Pitcher of the Week and was the UW-Stout/DigiCopy Athlete of the Week after pitching a season opening 1-0 shutout win over Bethel College, Feb. 27 at the US Bank Stadium...Noah Brown and Derek Graves earned WIAC honorable mention selection last spring.

COACHES: Ben Kincaid (6-17) is in his first year as the Blue Devils head coach, following two years as a Blue Devil assistant coach where he worked primarily with the pitchers. Kincaid played collegiately at at Minnesota State University-Mankato, where he was a four year letter winner, playing in 149 games. He finished with a .339 batting average, 38 doubles (5th on MSU's career list), six home runs and 140 runs batted in (6th on MSU's career list). As a righthanded pitcher he sported a 14-8 record with a 3.45 earned run average and had 148 strikeouts in 172 innings pitched. Kincaid was named to the All-Central Region team three times in his career. An Eau Claire native, Kincaide played for the local Eau Claire Express.  UW-La Crosse:  Chris Schwarz (301-228-1) is in his 13th season as head baseball coach at UW-La Crosse.  Along with his coaching duties, Schwarz serves as the Athletic Alumni Relations Coordinator.  He led the Eagles to their second straight appearance in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Baseball Championship in 2016 as UWL went 1-2.  The Eagles finished fourth in the final 2016 American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Collegiate Baseball and D3baseball.com polls.  UWL made its first ever appearance in the NCAA III Championship in 2015, advancing to the best-of-three championship series and a runner-up national finish


2016 BLUE DEVILS: Stout finished the 2016 season at 15-25 overall, 4-16 in the WIAC. | 2016 Statistics

DOWN THE ROAD:  The Blue Devils return home to host Northland College, Wednesday, April 26, then will close out the home portion of the schedule when they host UW-Oshkosh, Saturday, April 29 and Sunday, April 30.