#4 Iowa Western vs Garden City (DH) Saturday and Sunday

Finally the last of the Pre-Season Top 10 have started to play.Iowa Western Kicks off the weekend in big fashion traveling over to Kansas to take on Garden City. As always Iowa Western is loaded from top to bottom. They even got a huge Transfer at the break in Jack Kelly (San Jac). He though won’t be pitching this weekend and will be saved for their Monday game against Seward. The Reivers return a few huge keys to last years National Championship run. Jared Simpson (Missouri), Braedyn McLaughlin (Wichita State), and Cooper Bowman (Louisville) all played major roles in their success last year. 

For Garden City they come into the weekend riding a 3 game losing streak but that doesn’t tell their whole story. They have a 5-4 record but have put up decent numbers. What sticks out on paper is their OBP. It Currently sits at .426 which puts them at 44th in the country. But how they get on is not as most would think. Yes they do get hits, yes they do drive in runs, but they are currently 5th in the country in walks as a team with 61 and are 2nd in the country in Hit By Pitches. So these guys wait and aren’t afraid to get just ware it. Leading the way for them at the plate this season has been the combination of Ibrahim Rodriguez and Kyle Johnson. Rodriguez leads the team with a .414 Avg, with 3 doubles, 2 homers, 8 RBI’s and 7 runs. Johnson has only hit .250 but has played in every game so far with 2 doubles, scoring 8 runs, driven in 2 runs, and has stolen 5 bases.

All four of these games can be found streamed on the Garden City Athletic Youtube Page starting at 1PM CST each day (Saturday and Sunday) 

Eastern Arizona vs Cochise (DH) Saturday

As stated on this week’s Juco Pod episode, (Go give it a listen if you havent) Arizona kicks off their conference schedule. Now this might be the lowest combined ranked series out of all of them but this is the most intriguing.

 In recent years Eastern Arizona (8-4) has been at the bottom of the barrel when it came to the Div. 1 teams in Arizona. Well this year is a bit different. They have not dropped a series so far this season (Split with El Paso opening weekend). Compared to last year they already have half as many wins as last year. They have scored one fourth of the total number of runs that they put up last year. So things seem to be going in the right direction for them. Leading this new charge for them this season has been the duo of Tyler Mata-Lloyd, and Jorge Olague. Mata-Lloyd is hitting .306 in the 12 games he has played with 2 doubles, 6 runs, 6 RBI’s and has stolen 11 bases (3rd). Olague Leads the team hitting .440 in his 9 games, with 1 Double, 1 Triple, 2 homers, 1 RBI’s and 2 runs. 

For Cochise they come into the weekend with a 7-3 record losing just 1 game in each of the 3 series they have played so far. Leading them this season so far has been the tag team of Jimmy De Leon who is hitting .459 with 4 Doubles, a Triple, homer, 14 RBI’s (6th) and 14 Runs (3rd), and Steven Saunders who is hitting .419 with 4 doubles, a Triple, 10 RBI’s  and 6 Runs. 

*Projected Starters